BS: Asteroids: Missed us by THAT much!

07 Sep 10 - 10:05 PM (#2982011)
Subject: BS: Missed us by THAT much!
From: The Fooles Troupe

Two Asteroids to Pass Near Earth Wednesday

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07 Sep 10 - 10:08 PM (#2982012)
Subject: RE: BS: Missed us by THAT much!
From: The Fooles Troupe

QUOTE
Perhaps we should get our priorities straight. While here on earth humans argue and quibble about all manner of things, the universe will fling a couple rather large boulders in our general direction tomorrow, and most of us won't have any clue we were this close to getting clipped.

The two asteroids will travel inside the distance between the earth and the moon, according to NASA:

    Asteroid 2010 RX30 is estimated to be approximately 32 to 65 feet in size and will pass within approximately 154,000 miles of Earth at 5:51 a.m. EDT Wednesday. The second object, 2010 RF12, estimated to be 20 to 46 feet in size, will pass within approximately 49,000 miles at 5:12 p.m. EDT.

This is a near-miss in terms of distance; the moon's average orbit is only 238,600 miles from the earth.
UNQUOTE

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07 Sep 10 - 10:09 PM (#2982013)
Subject: RE: BS: Missed us by THAT much!
From: The Fooles Troupe

... and if they do hit us, I'll be posting ...

"Sorry about that Chief" ...

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07 Sep 10 - 11:13 PM (#2982043)
Subject: RE: BS: Missed us by THAT much!
From: Bill D

Get our priorities straight?

Suggestions?

Cease to "quibble about all manner of things"?...or just spend more money on scanning the sky?

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07 Sep 10 - 11:13 PM (#2982044)
Subject: RE: BS: Missed us by THAT much!
From: mousethief

Zounds. If that sucker hit us there'd be nobody left to worry but the cockroaches.

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07 Sep 10 - 11:29 PM (#2982055)
Subject: RE: BS: Missed us by THAT much!
From: katlaughing

That's been their plan all along, mousethief...world domination with nothing left to dominate but themselves.:-)

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08 Sep 10 - 09:43 AM (#2982295)
Subject: RE: BS: Missed us by THAT much!
From: GUEST,Agent 86

Why, that's the second biggest asteroid I've ever seen!

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08 Sep 10 - 09:49 AM (#2982296)
Subject: RE: BS: Missed us by THAT much!
From: Uncle_DaveO

Mousethief said

If that sucker hit us there'd be nobody left to worry but the cockroaches.

"That sucker" (actually, both of them) is(are) WELL BELOW the size that would pose a significant threat to the Earth as a whole if it(or either) hit.

Now, if one of them should hit say Chicago, the local effects would be terrible, of course, but "nobody left to worry"

Dave Oesterreich

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08 Sep 10 - 09:53 AM (#2982299)
Subject: RE: BS: Missed us by THAT much!
From: GUEST,leeneia

Well below the size that would cause significant threat?

I'll go back to thawing the chicken then.

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08 Sep 10 - 09:58 AM (#2982303)
Subject: RE: BS: Missed us by THAT much!
From: mousethief

I stand corrected. You've made the cockroaches very sad, however.

Sing hey! for the roaches as ast'roids approach us
The big one will get us, they think
Within the moon's orbit, the earth will absorb it,
That ast'roid that makes us extinct

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08 Sep 10 - 04:39 PM (#2982647)
Subject: RE: BS: Missed us by THAT much!
From: Lox

"I'll go back to thawing the chicken then."

I know funny ... and thats funny!

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08 Sep 10 - 05:28 PM (#2982670)
Subject: RE: BS: Asteroids: Missed us by THAT much!
From: Lox

.



          I don't miss my Asteroids ...


          ... oops ... thats something else ...



.

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08 Sep 10 - 06:29 PM (#2982708)
Subject: RE: BS: Asteroids: Missed us by THAT much!
From: gnu

I second Lox... leeneia! Hahahahahaa.

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08 Sep 10 - 08:01 PM (#2982773)
Subject: RE: BS: Asteroids: Missed us by THAT much!
From: kendall

How many of us realize that we are all "Johnnie's come lately" on this planet? That it was never designed to accommodate us? Hell, even the lizards came before us.

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08 Sep 10 - 08:48 PM (#2982805)
Subject: RE: BS: Asteroids: Missed us by THAT much!
From: Bill D

It's not a matter of whether...but when.
The only good news is that we CAN now see some of these things coming, and 'may' be able to work up some defenses.

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08 Sep 10 - 11:06 PM (#2982868)
Subject: RE: BS: Asteroids: Missed us by THAT much!
From: Slag

Well, those guys are considerably smaller than the one that left the impact crater near Winslow Arizona but still I wouldn't want to be within 200 miles should one of them strike the Earth. The heat alone would kill everything within a 30 mile radius and it would kick up thousands of house sized boulders traveling at supersonic speeds. The kill zone would be immense. Better were it to strike a large, unpopulated spanse of the ocean in a directly downward angle (90 degrees) but even then it could spawn a tsunami. Brrr!

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09 Sep 10 - 12:08 AM (#2982879)
Subject: RE: BS: Asteroids: Missed us by THAT much!
From: catspaw49

"The only good news is that we CAN now see some of these things coming, and 'may' be able to work up some defenses."

Ya' know Bill, when I consider the way things are going, I'm not real sure that IS good news. Maybe it was being a Boomer who grew up under the threat of "The Bomb" but I've always kinda' been more of a "POOF----Your ass is gone" kind of guy................


Spaw

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09 Sep 10 - 02:28 AM (#2982907)
Subject: RE: BS: Asteroids: Missed us by THAT much!
From: mousethief

Perhaps by throwing a thick cloud of dust into the upper atmosphere it could have a salutary effect on global warming?

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09 Sep 10 - 03:31 AM (#2982924)
Subject: RE: BS: Asteroids: Missed us by THAT much!
From: The Fooles Troupe

Don't start THAT again!

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09 Sep 10 - 09:51 AM (#2983075)
Subject: RE: BS: Asteroids: Missed us by THAT much!
From: GUEST,crazy little woman

Gosh, y'all are so negative. I read a site that said if they came close enough, they would disintegrate. Imagine how cool that would be! Lots of meteors and shooting stars! Free fireworks for all!

And some lucky folks would get meteorites to add to their rock collections or sell to a museum.

I do hope they knew what they were talking about, for the next time one comes close.

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09 Sep 10 - 10:38 AM (#2983107)
Subject: RE: BS: Asteroids: Missed us by THAT much!
From: Jack the Sailor

Cockroaches are supposed to be one of the last critters standing after nuclear war because they are supposed less vulnerable to radiation than most other things. An asteroid strike would not produce much radiation. So the rats and other non-specialized critters would also have a chance at world domination. I would include humans in that group, but not all 7 billion or indeed most civilizations.

As for spending more money to insure ourselves against relatively small asteroids. I would wager that what is spent worldwide, on baldness treatments, fake boobs or even football jerseys never to be worn on a football field would more than cover the amount of money needed. Like all politics, it is simply a matter of placing the proper priorities.

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09 Sep 10 - 01:58 PM (#2983282)
Subject: RE: BS: Asteroids: Missed us by THAT much!
From: Donuel

Its hard to see the ones that come in from the sun's direction.
Also the Southern Hemisphere has fewer scopes looking than the northern,

Having a push button nuclear response is a bad idea in the event of an unseen asteriod strike.
I suggest we have 3 big and difficult sodoku puzzles that must be completed before launching a nuke.

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09 Sep 10 - 03:25 PM (#2983364)
Subject: RE: BS: Asteroids: Missed us by THAT much!
From: Jack the Sailor

>>Its hard to see the ones that come in from the sun's direction.<<

Yes and obviously, to overcome the sun's gravity they must be very determined. ;-)

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09 Sep 10 - 03:42 PM (#2983379)
Subject: RE: BS: Asteroids: Missed us by THAT much!
From: mousethief

Do you suppose they thumb their rocky noses at us as they fly by? "Nyah nyah, coulda gotcha but I didn't."

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09 Sep 10 - 05:15 PM (#2983441)
Subject: RE: BS: Asteroids: Missed us by THAT much!
From: Lox

Did Spaw say he was a POOF! .... ?


That could get you in as much trouble in the UK as announcing that you're going out to "Smoke a Fag" could in the USA.


A friend of mine said this in Atlanta while on a visit with a friend ...

"I'm just going out to smoke a fag" ...

To which their guide replied

"hey man take it easy - I don't like 'em either, but I don't wanna shoot one ..."

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09 Sep 10 - 05:41 PM (#2983458)
Subject: RE: BS: Asteroids: Missed us by THAT much!
From: Slag

Uh, is that kinda like smoking a Lox? Or a Lox and beagle? aside...

There are trajectories and Earth-Sun alignments that might have a space rock coming from the direction of the Sun to which we would be visually blind for a perod of time but not long enough that we would somehow not see them until they were upon us. If one were coming directly from the Sun's direction it would also be climbing out of the Sun's gravity well and losing speed. The maximum in-coming speed of any object which orginates in the solar system is aobut forty miles a second-plenty fast- but climbing up from the Sun would be much slower giving more time for detection and counter-measures.

As for one breaking up because of tidal forces, being better? You're talking shotgun versus rifle bullet! Impact would still be a high risk.

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10 Sep 10 - 12:07 PM (#2983988)
Subject: RE: BS: Asteroids: Missed us by THAT much!
From: GUEST,leeneia

Thanks, Lox and Gnu. You know why.

Here's some data that my husband sent me.
=========
Here are some interesting numbers re asteroid diameters:

250 feet: Meteor Crater, Arizona
2,000 to 5,000 feet:   Estimated to be too small to cause major
extinction due to relatively low soot or sulfate levels in atmosphere;
1 Mile: Estimated 1 billion human casualties.
6 miles: K-T Boundary extinctions;
6 miles plus: Permian extinction;
6 to 10 miles: Extinction of human race by concussion, fire, tidal
waves, blocking of sunlight for several years.

Looks like anything smaller than about 250 feet in
diameter is likely to break up in the atmosphere.
=============
"Impact would still be high risk." Oh, I dunno. We get hit by meteorites/oids-whatever-you-call-em all the time. They almost never hurt anything.

I read a book on dust once. Did you know that tiny debris from space is a large component of household dust?

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10 Sep 10 - 05:43 PM (#2984188)
Subject: RE: BS: Asteroids: Missed us by THAT much!
From: Slag

We did an experiment in grade school by hanging an old sheet over clothes lines for several days. We then dragged a magnet over the sheet and picked up a small smattering of powdery iron, meteorite debris! The Earth grow heavier by several hundred tons every day. It's amazing.

As for a large object, scores of feet in diameter breaking up, and the common "shooting star" or meteoroid (meteorite if it reaches the ground intact), as the large object breaks up it will not all be homogeneously the size of sand particles like the common meteoroid. There will be some very large chunks that potentially could do some major damage. Should it be a nickle-iron meteor or asteroid, chances are that it will hang together for it's trip through the atmosphere. That, or convert to highspeed metallic plasma. The latter is the same substance the military uses to destroy heavily armored targets.

Trajectory has a big part in the event also. If the object is coming straight in it is more apt to remain in one piece. The first 100 mile of atmosphere is virtually vacuum. The next forty or so is thin air and only the last five miles is heavy, dense atmosphere. If it comes in at an angle it will travel thorugh a much wider swath, burn and break up more. Bad news here is that it will still be traveling at an incredible speed when it impacts plus heating the atmosphere as it enters.

All in all the big ones are to be avoided if at all possible, as no good for humakind can come from it-other than from a scientific perspective.

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