An Astroid Is Coming! An Astroid Is Coming!!
 

GET READY TO DUCK!!

Well, okay, you don't need to duck ... it'll be over 300,000 miles from us ... but that's pretty close in space terms.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080125.../earth_asteroid

dicksbro,

Yessir, it certainly is!

That is why NASA needs to be able to continue funding the pogram which tracks NEAs. Sooner or later one of them will need to be interdicted, and we do not yet know enough about them.

DB when I saw this title I was laughing cause it reminded me of Paul Rever's ride which kiddo's class is renacting in school today. Last week they brought tea cups and got to taste several flavors of tea, which kiddo didn't care for.

Hijack over.............


I watched a movie about Astroids a few weeks ago.

A lot of eyes will be on TU24. Finding out if this is a single solid body or a unit of smaller components will provide different options methods of feasible intervention. They have come before and WILL come again.

No need to worry, no cause for alarm. Just getting a bucket.

I was thinking of that when I named the thread! :)

whenever i hear interdiction used as a strategy to deal with potentially planet-destroying asteroids it always cracks me up ... makes it sound like we can just forbid all asteroids from hitting earth and that'll be that. lol. it's a nice euphemism though, and keeps the masses calm. i guess saying nuke the fucker out of the milky way if we have to sounds kinda scary.lmao

Interdiction, when needed, will probably take the form of a small amount acceleration expressed over an extended period. The trajectory of debris from nuking an NEA would be unpredictable and possibly dangerous. Hence the need for continuous monitoring.

i know that, jseal. i was being dramatic. :D it's only because interdiction is something i personally associate more with the prohibition (legalese) and ecclesiastic meanings and less with the confront and stop, or destroy with guns meanings. hence it cracks me up.

That's good to learn.

lol. don't hold it against me. :p

Shoot, there goes my idea. :(








:D

We've been taking lessons for over 7 years now. ;)

The arrogance of trying to do much with a 600 metre diameter chunk of rock zipping through at tens of thousands of miles per hour is breathtaking.

If only as dense as water, this is over 100 million tons. If it's rock, over 500 million tons.

The momentum of this cosmic BB is a staggering six fucktrillion gigasplats.

I'll leave the final figures to our resident number cruncher.

How do you spell "Chicken Little"?

Final figures vary widely. Depends on the speed at which the object hits us, depends on the angle at which it strikes (remember, these two together are what determine velocity in this sense).

Momentum= mv (mass time velocity)
Energy=(mv**2)/2 ((mass times velocity times velocity) divided by 2)

And actual destructiveness is utterly unpredictable, since it depends on not only momentum and energy, but where on the planet a potential impactor would strike: that so critically affects the mix of potential ejecta, and potential secondary effects.

the sky is falling the sky is falling :wish:

Oh sorry it missed ;)

Did you know that flying is when you throw yourself at the ground ...








... and miss. :(

:jacques:

^^^ :roflmao:

Didn't we get even a couple of microsplats?

not even a ripple

Next orbit or two maybe.

Or more likely the one we haven't seen.

Yep!

"I'm gong to destroy the Earth. It's blocking my view of Venus".

and yet more of the sky is falling
 

a US spy satellite (about the size of a bus and travelling at 29,000 mph and costin 4 billion-trillion dollars) is losing orbit. do we know when it'll hit? late feb, early march. do we know where it'll hit? not yet. of course since roughly 3/4 of our great blue marble is water, there's a 1 in 4 chance it'll hit land. do we know if it's got nuclear power or other hazardous materials? sorry, that's classified. could hostile forces get sensitive info? maybe. why haven't we heard much about it? well, there was a bit of a report but then a lame duck SOTU address came upon the scene and guiliani, et al dropped out of the race so there were other, more important things to talk about. :D

but have no fear! "appropriate government sources are monitoring the situation" so sayeth the national security counsel. ohhhhmmm.

phew. for a second there, i was worried. :p


more indepth info than my rather dramatic recap can be found here http://www.globalsecurity.org/space/systems/e-305.htm

I saw this new story or at least the head line I think on Yahoo. It siad something like satellite going to fall out of the sky it might hit earth. When I saw it I had to laugh and wonder what in the world else it would hit.

In the late 70s Skylab gave us a similar Chicken Little moment...I recall that it splashed down harmlessly in the Pacific after giving Oz one hell of a light show...


Apparently after a half-century of cavemen dressed as rocket scientists throwing rocks at the moon, they still forget the first rule..."Whatever goes up, must come down"...

the pentagon will be shooting the satellite down

I think it is our duty as Pixies to try and save the Earth. C'mon everybody, let's each order an Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator! :nod:

I hope the Air Force is backing up the Navy :corn:

Like this?

I really think we should all take some time and brush up on some old skills.

Oh, dear I've got the silly thing stuck in reverse. I've turned him into a Neanderthal Rabbit!

how about we have a refresher coarse on 'Duck and Cover'.

Frustrating, but fun.

The more I hear about this story, the more convinced I am that the govt. may well be using this as a trial run to see if maybe there's a chance in hell that they could shoot down some future object that constitutes a real & present danger, as opposed to the one in a galzillion chance that this space junk presents. Frankly, if that's the case, I'm all for it...God knows our military can always use a little target practice.

It's a message to the Chinese, put nukes or lasers into orbit and they'll remove them.

I bet they're regretting getting rid of the F15 launched A-sat.