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Potential Doomsday Asteroid will pass closer than some telecom Satellites, on 2/15
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dogsoldier
Elite Member
Hopefully, Azza's house. If it does, I hope the kids he has locked up in the basement get out first.
Potential Doomsday Asteroid will pass closer than some telecom Satellites, on 2
I hope it hits the moon and knocks it half its distance to us so that it looks huge in the sky at night.
I had a dream once that there is a tiny Earth like Moon on the other side of our moon that we have never seen, but it's inhabited by mm tall creatures that are very intelligent.
I hope it hits the moon and knocks it half its distance to us so that it looks huge in the sky at night.
I had a dream once that there is a tiny Earth like Moon on the other side of our moon that we have never seen, but it's inhabited by mm tall creatures that are very intelligent.
Oh oh, another near doomsday. lol
dogsoldier
Elite Member
Everyone into the bunker, don't push there is plenty of room in the back.
I am showing my age with this one. Back when the first space station, Skylab, was coming down the gubbermint could not really shay where it would crash. The fashion statement of the day were dufus's and freeze dried hippies wearing hard hats wherever they went. It was pretty funny.
I am showing my age with this one. Back when the first space station, Skylab, was coming down the gubbermint could not really shay where it would crash. The fashion statement of the day were dufus's and freeze dried hippies wearing hard hats wherever they went. It was pretty funny.
A meteor shower hit russia. They say it isnt connected to the meteor that will miss us today. But what a coincidence....
? Russian Meteor Shower Linked to DA14 Asteroid? Alex Jones' Infowars: There's a war on for your mind!
It was like a scene from the Armageddon movie
Experts are pondering whether a meteorite shower which caused panic in Russia, injuring over 500 people, devastating buildings and wiping out the cell phone network, is linked to today?s fly-by of DA14, the ?city killer? asteroid that NASA has assured will not hit the earth.
The meteor shower, which was dramatically captured by numerous people on cell phone videos, was described by some as ?like a scene from the Armageddon movie,? with YouTube clips showing a trail appearing across the sky before a dazzling bright object appears followed by loud booms.
The rocks crashed at around 9:20am local time, mainly over the sparsely populated city of Chelyabinsk, 900 miles east of Moscow. 20,000 rescue workers have been sent to aid recovery efforts, with the full extent of the damage not yet known. Windows were smashed and buildings were devastated, including the 6,000 square feet roof of a zinc factory, as some residents feared ?doomsday? had arrived.
The main chunk of the meteor fell into a frozen lake, creating a huge hole in the ice. Experts are still undecided whether the event was caused by a meteor shower or a single meteor, as well as whether the damage was caused by the shock wave or actual debris, although residents reported fireballs crashing to the ground.
Space experts are divided on whether the meteor is connected to today?s fly-by of asteroid DA14, which will pass within 17,200 miles of the earth?s surface, closer than many orbiting satellites.
The European Space Agency (ESA) put out a message on its official Twitter account claiming that the meteor shower was not debris from the DA14 asteroid.
However, Tatiana Bordovitsina, an astronomy professor at Tomsk State University in western Siberia, told RIA Novosti that the meteor, ?could have been debris preceding the asteroid.?
Professor Ian Crawford of Birkbeck University told Sky News that, ?it was too early to tell if this incident was connected to the asteroid passing by the earth tonight,? but added that if meteorites were traveling with the asteroid, they would be several hours ahead of it.
Curtin University asteroid expert Phil Bland told an Australian website, ?Is it connected to the flyby? A lot of folks would say ?no?. Personally, I?ve always kind of liked the idea that there are streams of asteroid debris ? so you can have smaller stuff that precede and trail a bigger object. It seems like an awful big coincidence if it?s not connected.?
Simon O?Toole, an astronomer at the Australian Astronomical Observatory, thinks that there is unlikely to be a connection. ?As pointed out elsewhere, DA14 is still half a million kilometres away, travelling at 8km per second, for a start! Could it be part of the asteroid that has broken away and reached earth already? This seems unlikely to me,? he said.
Dr Stephen Lowry, planetary scientist at the University of Kent, doubted the connection but remarked that the meteorite shower was ?an incredible conincidence.?
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev reacted to the incident by warning that the ?whole planet? is vulnerable to near-earth objects, while nationalist leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky even claimed the event was actually ?the test of a new weapon by the Americans,? adding that, ?[Secretary of state John] Kerry warned [foreign minister Sergei] Lavrov on Monday ? that there would be such a provocation and that it might affect Russia.?
Officials issued a statement assuring that no nuclear sites had been hit by the meteor and that no radiation leaks had been recorded.
Watch more videos of the meteorite shower below.
?????????? [21.12] ??????? ????????? - YouTube
?????? ??? ??????????? 15.02.2013 - YouTube
????? ? ?????????? - YouTube
? Russian Meteor Shower Linked to DA14 Asteroid? Alex Jones' Infowars: There's a war on for your mind!
It was like a scene from the Armageddon movie
Experts are pondering whether a meteorite shower which caused panic in Russia, injuring over 500 people, devastating buildings and wiping out the cell phone network, is linked to today?s fly-by of DA14, the ?city killer? asteroid that NASA has assured will not hit the earth.
The meteor shower, which was dramatically captured by numerous people on cell phone videos, was described by some as ?like a scene from the Armageddon movie,? with YouTube clips showing a trail appearing across the sky before a dazzling bright object appears followed by loud booms.
The rocks crashed at around 9:20am local time, mainly over the sparsely populated city of Chelyabinsk, 900 miles east of Moscow. 20,000 rescue workers have been sent to aid recovery efforts, with the full extent of the damage not yet known. Windows were smashed and buildings were devastated, including the 6,000 square feet roof of a zinc factory, as some residents feared ?doomsday? had arrived.
The main chunk of the meteor fell into a frozen lake, creating a huge hole in the ice. Experts are still undecided whether the event was caused by a meteor shower or a single meteor, as well as whether the damage was caused by the shock wave or actual debris, although residents reported fireballs crashing to the ground.
Space experts are divided on whether the meteor is connected to today?s fly-by of asteroid DA14, which will pass within 17,200 miles of the earth?s surface, closer than many orbiting satellites.
The European Space Agency (ESA) put out a message on its official Twitter account claiming that the meteor shower was not debris from the DA14 asteroid.
However, Tatiana Bordovitsina, an astronomy professor at Tomsk State University in western Siberia, told RIA Novosti that the meteor, ?could have been debris preceding the asteroid.?
Professor Ian Crawford of Birkbeck University told Sky News that, ?it was too early to tell if this incident was connected to the asteroid passing by the earth tonight,? but added that if meteorites were traveling with the asteroid, they would be several hours ahead of it.
Curtin University asteroid expert Phil Bland told an Australian website, ?Is it connected to the flyby? A lot of folks would say ?no?. Personally, I?ve always kind of liked the idea that there are streams of asteroid debris ? so you can have smaller stuff that precede and trail a bigger object. It seems like an awful big coincidence if it?s not connected.?
Simon O?Toole, an astronomer at the Australian Astronomical Observatory, thinks that there is unlikely to be a connection. ?As pointed out elsewhere, DA14 is still half a million kilometres away, travelling at 8km per second, for a start! Could it be part of the asteroid that has broken away and reached earth already? This seems unlikely to me,? he said.
Dr Stephen Lowry, planetary scientist at the University of Kent, doubted the connection but remarked that the meteorite shower was ?an incredible conincidence.?
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev reacted to the incident by warning that the ?whole planet? is vulnerable to near-earth objects, while nationalist leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky even claimed the event was actually ?the test of a new weapon by the Americans,? adding that, ?[Secretary of state John] Kerry warned [foreign minister Sergei] Lavrov on Monday ? that there would be such a provocation and that it might affect Russia.?
Officials issued a statement assuring that no nuclear sites had been hit by the meteor and that no radiation leaks had been recorded.
Watch more videos of the meteorite shower below.
?????????? [21.12] ??????? ????????? - YouTube
?????? ??? ??????????? 15.02.2013 - YouTube
????? ? ?????????? - YouTube
jagbender
Registered
[h=1]Meteorite hits central Russia, more than 500 people hurt[/h]By Natalia Shurmina and Andrey Kuzmin | Reuters ? 2 hrs 6 mins ago
[h=3]Related Content[/h]
prevnext
CHELYABINSK, Russia (Reuters) - More than 500 people were injured when a meteorite shot across the sky and exploded over central Russia on Friday, sending fireballs crashing to Earth, shattering windows and damaging buildings.
People heading to work in Chelyabinsk heard what sounded like an explosion, saw a bright light and then felt a shockwave according to a Reuters correspondent in the industrial city 1,500 km (950 miles) east of Moscow.
A fireball blazed across the horizon, leaving a long white trail in its wake which could be seen as far as 200 km (125 miles) away in Yekaterinburg. Car alarms went off, windows shattered and mobile phone networks were interrupted.
"I was driving to work, it was quite dark, but it suddenly became as bright as if it was day," said Viktor Prokofiev, 36, a resident of Yekaterinburg in the Urals Mountains.
"I felt like I was blinded by headlights," he said.
No fatalities were reported but President Vladimir Putin, who was due to host Finance Ministry officials from the Group of 20 nations in Moscow, and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev were informed.
A local ministry official said such incidents were extremely rare and Friday's events might have been linked to an asteroid the size of an Olympic swimming pool due to pass Earth at a distance of 27,520 km (17,100 miles) but this was not confirmed.
Russia's space agency Roscosmos said the meteorite was travelling at a speed of 30 km (19 miles) per second and that such events were hard to predict. The Interior Ministry said the meteorite explosion had caused a sonic boom.
Russia's Emergencies Ministry said 514 people had sought medical help, mainly for light injuries caused by flying glass, and that 112 of those were kept in hospital. Search groups were set up to look for the remains of the meteorite.
"There have never been any cases of meteorites breaking up at such a low level over Russia before," said Yuri Burenko, head of the Chelyabinsk branch of the Emergencies Ministry.
WINDOWS BREAK, FRAMES BUCKLE
Windows were shattered on Chelyabinsk's central Lenin Street and some of the frames of shop fronts buckled.
A loud noise, resembling an explosion, rang out at around 9.20 a.m. (12:20 a.m. ET). The shockwave could be felt in apartment buildings in the industrial city's center.
"I was standing at a bus stop, seeing off my girlfriend," said Andrei, a local resident who did not give his second name. "Then there was a flash and I saw a trail of smoke across the sky and felt a shockwave that smashed windows."
A wall was damaged at the Chelyabinsk Zinc Plant but a spokeswoman said there was no environmental threat.
Although such events are rare, a meteorite is thought to have devastated an area of more than 2,000 sq km (1,250 miles) in Siberia in 1908, smashing windows as far as 200 km (125 miles) from the point of impact.
The Emergencies Ministry described Friday's events as a "meteor shower in the form of fireballs" and said background radiation levels were normal. It urged residents not to panic.
Chelyabinsk city authorities urged people to stay indoors unless they needed to pick up their children from schools and kindergartens. They said what sounded like a blast had been heard at an altitude of 10,000 meters (32,800 feet).
The U.S. space agency NASA has said an asteroid known as 2012 DA14, about 46 meters in diameter, would have an encounter with Earth closer than any asteroid since scientists began routinely monitoring them about 15 years ago.
Television, weather and communications satellites fly about 500 miles higher. The moon is 14 times farther away.
(Additional reporting by Natalia Shurmina in Yekaterinburg and Gabriela Baczynska in Moscow, Writing by Alexei Anishchuk and Timothy Heritage, Editing by Michael Holden)
- Russian meteorite caught on tape; injuries reportedKABC ? Los Angeles 0:56A meteor hit over Russia's Ural Mountains on Friday, causing sharp explosions and reportedly injuring ?
[h=3]Related Content[/h]
prevnext
View PhotoThe trail of a falling object is ?
View PhotoBroken windows and debris are seen ?
View PhotoPeople look at damage to a shop ?
View PhotoA man removes shards of glass from ?
View PhotoA man identifying himself as Viktor ?
CHELYABINSK, Russia (Reuters) - More than 500 people were injured when a meteorite shot across the sky and exploded over central Russia on Friday, sending fireballs crashing to Earth, shattering windows and damaging buildings.
People heading to work in Chelyabinsk heard what sounded like an explosion, saw a bright light and then felt a shockwave according to a Reuters correspondent in the industrial city 1,500 km (950 miles) east of Moscow.
A fireball blazed across the horizon, leaving a long white trail in its wake which could be seen as far as 200 km (125 miles) away in Yekaterinburg. Car alarms went off, windows shattered and mobile phone networks were interrupted.
"I was driving to work, it was quite dark, but it suddenly became as bright as if it was day," said Viktor Prokofiev, 36, a resident of Yekaterinburg in the Urals Mountains.
"I felt like I was blinded by headlights," he said.
No fatalities were reported but President Vladimir Putin, who was due to host Finance Ministry officials from the Group of 20 nations in Moscow, and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev were informed.
A local ministry official said such incidents were extremely rare and Friday's events might have been linked to an asteroid the size of an Olympic swimming pool due to pass Earth at a distance of 27,520 km (17,100 miles) but this was not confirmed.
Russia's space agency Roscosmos said the meteorite was travelling at a speed of 30 km (19 miles) per second and that such events were hard to predict. The Interior Ministry said the meteorite explosion had caused a sonic boom.
Russia's Emergencies Ministry said 514 people had sought medical help, mainly for light injuries caused by flying glass, and that 112 of those were kept in hospital. Search groups were set up to look for the remains of the meteorite.
"There have never been any cases of meteorites breaking up at such a low level over Russia before," said Yuri Burenko, head of the Chelyabinsk branch of the Emergencies Ministry.
WINDOWS BREAK, FRAMES BUCKLE
Windows were shattered on Chelyabinsk's central Lenin Street and some of the frames of shop fronts buckled.
A loud noise, resembling an explosion, rang out at around 9.20 a.m. (12:20 a.m. ET). The shockwave could be felt in apartment buildings in the industrial city's center.
"I was standing at a bus stop, seeing off my girlfriend," said Andrei, a local resident who did not give his second name. "Then there was a flash and I saw a trail of smoke across the sky and felt a shockwave that smashed windows."
A wall was damaged at the Chelyabinsk Zinc Plant but a spokeswoman said there was no environmental threat.
Although such events are rare, a meteorite is thought to have devastated an area of more than 2,000 sq km (1,250 miles) in Siberia in 1908, smashing windows as far as 200 km (125 miles) from the point of impact.
The Emergencies Ministry described Friday's events as a "meteor shower in the form of fireballs" and said background radiation levels were normal. It urged residents not to panic.
Chelyabinsk city authorities urged people to stay indoors unless they needed to pick up their children from schools and kindergartens. They said what sounded like a blast had been heard at an altitude of 10,000 meters (32,800 feet).
The U.S. space agency NASA has said an asteroid known as 2012 DA14, about 46 meters in diameter, would have an encounter with Earth closer than any asteroid since scientists began routinely monitoring them about 15 years ago.
Television, weather and communications satellites fly about 500 miles higher. The moon is 14 times farther away.
(Additional reporting by Natalia Shurmina in Yekaterinburg and Gabriela Baczynska in Moscow, Writing by Alexei Anishchuk and Timothy Heritage, Editing by Michael Holden)
I'm almost more scared of an meteorite hitting a satellite. Which will turn into more space junk damaging other satellites or future space vehicles. Imagine the possible domino effect of one satellite getting shedded into thousands of parts, the parts then collide into other satellites causing more parts to collide with other satellites.
jagbender
Registered
jagbender
Registered
jagbender
Registered
scary but fascinating. 
So what can we do to prevent the worse from happening? other than been worried to death
there is clearly only one way to survive this... steroids
dogsoldier
Elite Member
I am actually amazed this doesn't happen more with all the crap floating around up there.
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I saw the explanation on one of the shows on the Science channel. The bigger planets, especially Jupiter, clean most of the little objects with the massive gravity they have. Some years back that comet that struck Jupiter was the televised example. The comet was in one piece until it was ripped to pieces in the planet's gravity before inpact.
The asteroids and comets that come close or into the center of the solar system have orbits that avoid the outer planets.
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It took a few minutes for me to remember the name of the comet.
Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 (astronomy) -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia
Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9,
<img alt="Shoemaker-Levy 9, Comet [Credit: NASA/STScI/H.A. Weaver and T.E. Smith]" src="http://media-2.web.britannica.com/eb-media/84/75384-003-AB605BB6.jpg" width="100" height="21">comet whose shattered nucleus crashed into Jupiter over the period of July 16?22, 1994. The cataclysmic event, the first collision between two solar system bodies ever observed, was monitored from Earth-based telescopes worldwide, the Hubble Space Telescope and other Earth-orbiting instruments, and the Galileo spacecraft, which was en route to Jupiter.
On March 25, 1993, a previously unknown comet positioned close to Jupiter was noted by Eugene and Carolyn Shoemaker and David Levy in photographs taken at Palomar Observatory in California. Most unusual was its appearance?it comprised at least a dozen cometary nuclei lined up like glowing pearls on a string. Week after week the nuclei spread farther apart until a total of 21 fragments were visible. An analysis of their common orbit revealed that the original comet, which had been revolving about the Sun, had grazed Jupiter?s atmosphere and nearly crashed into it on July 8, 1992. At that time, tidal gravitational forces from the giant planet had broken the nucleus into many pieces, which were captured by Jupiter?s gravity and thrown into an elongated two-year orbit around the planet. Astronomers calculated that the new orbit would bring the pieces back to Jupiter in July 1994.
<img alt="Shoemaker-Levy 9, Comet: effects of collision with Jupiter [Credit: NASA/Hubble Space Telescope Comet Team]" src="http://media-2.web.britannica.com/eb-media/83/75383-003-AA2D9620.jpg" width="100" height="80">The train of fragments from Shoemaker-Levy 9 smashed into Jupiter?s atmosphere with a velocity of 216,000 km (134,000 miles) per hour beginning July 16, 1994. They all hit the unobservable side beyond the limb of Jupiter as seen from Earth, but the planet?s 10-hour rotation quickly brought each impact site into view. Separated in time by an average of seven to eight hours, each fragment plunged deeply into the Jovian atmosphere, leaving conspicuous scars aligned in a zone near latitude 44? S. Astronomers labeled the individual fragments with capital letters in order of arrival. Fragment G, with an estimated diameter of 3?4 km (1.9?2.5 miles), was probably the largest and heaviest. It left a dark multiringed blemish twice as large as Earth?s diameter. Its impact delivered energy equivalent to several trillion tons of TNT?hundreds of times the yield of the world?s supply of nuclear weapons. Each impact transformed quickly into an immense bubble of hot gas that glowed warmly in infrared images of Jupiter as it expanded for a few days in the atmosphere. The planet-girdling string of dark brown bruises, assumed to be fine organic cometary dust, remained visible for weeks; it faded slowly into a new, narrow belt induced by Jupiter?s strong winds.
Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 (astronomy) -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia
Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9,
<img alt="Shoemaker-Levy 9, Comet [Credit: NASA/STScI/H.A. Weaver and T.E. Smith]" src="http://media-2.web.britannica.com/eb-media/84/75384-003-AB605BB6.jpg" width="100" height="21">comet whose shattered nucleus crashed into Jupiter over the period of July 16?22, 1994. The cataclysmic event, the first collision between two solar system bodies ever observed, was monitored from Earth-based telescopes worldwide, the Hubble Space Telescope and other Earth-orbiting instruments, and the Galileo spacecraft, which was en route to Jupiter.On March 25, 1993, a previously unknown comet positioned close to Jupiter was noted by Eugene and Carolyn Shoemaker and David Levy in photographs taken at Palomar Observatory in California. Most unusual was its appearance?it comprised at least a dozen cometary nuclei lined up like glowing pearls on a string. Week after week the nuclei spread farther apart until a total of 21 fragments were visible. An analysis of their common orbit revealed that the original comet, which had been revolving about the Sun, had grazed Jupiter?s atmosphere and nearly crashed into it on July 8, 1992. At that time, tidal gravitational forces from the giant planet had broken the nucleus into many pieces, which were captured by Jupiter?s gravity and thrown into an elongated two-year orbit around the planet. Astronomers calculated that the new orbit would bring the pieces back to Jupiter in July 1994.
<img alt="Shoemaker-Levy 9, Comet: effects of collision with Jupiter [Credit: NASA/Hubble Space Telescope Comet Team]" src="http://media-2.web.britannica.com/eb-media/83/75383-003-AA2D9620.jpg" width="100" height="80">The train of fragments from Shoemaker-Levy 9 smashed into Jupiter?s atmosphere with a velocity of 216,000 km (134,000 miles) per hour beginning July 16, 1994. They all hit the unobservable side beyond the limb of Jupiter as seen from Earth, but the planet?s 10-hour rotation quickly brought each impact site into view. Separated in time by an average of seven to eight hours, each fragment plunged deeply into the Jovian atmosphere, leaving conspicuous scars aligned in a zone near latitude 44? S. Astronomers labeled the individual fragments with capital letters in order of arrival. Fragment G, with an estimated diameter of 3?4 km (1.9?2.5 miles), was probably the largest and heaviest. It left a dark multiringed blemish twice as large as Earth?s diameter. Its impact delivered energy equivalent to several trillion tons of TNT?hundreds of times the yield of the world?s supply of nuclear weapons. Each impact transformed quickly into an immense bubble of hot gas that glowed warmly in infrared images of Jupiter as it expanded for a few days in the atmosphere. The planet-girdling string of dark brown bruises, assumed to be fine organic cometary dust, remained visible for weeks; it faded slowly into a new, narrow belt induced by Jupiter?s strong winds.
^^^ this is a great video
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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. ? A space rock even bigger than the meteor that exploded like an atom bomb over Russia could drop out of the sky unannounced at any time and wreak havoc on a city. And Hollywood to the contrary, there isn't much the world's scientists and generals can do about it.
But some former astronauts want to give the world a fighting chance.
They're hopeful Friday's cosmic coincidence ? Earth's close brush with a 150-foot asteroid, hours after the 49-foot meteor struck in Russia ? will draw attention to the dangers lurking in outer space and lead to action, such as better detection and tracking of asteroids.
"After today, a lot of people will be paying attention," said Rusty Schweickart, who flew on Apollo 9 in 1969, helped establish the planet-protecting B612 Foundation and has been warning NASA for years to put more muscle and money into a heightened asteroid alert.
Earth is menaced all the time by meteors, which are chunks of asteroids or comets that enter Earth's atmosphere. But many if not most of them are simply too small to detect from afar with the tools now available to astronomers.
The meteor that shattered over the Ural Mountains was estimated to be 20 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima during World War II. It blew out thousands of windows and left more than 1,000 people injured in Chelyabinsk, a city of 1 million. And yet no one saw it coming; it was about the size of a bus.
"This is a tiny asteroid," said astronomer Paul Chodas, who works in NASA's Near-Earth Object program in Pasadena, Calif. "It would be very faint and difficult to detect ? not impossible, but difficult."
As for the three-times-longer asteroid that hurtled by Earth later in the day Friday, passing closer to the planet than some communications satellites, astronomers in Spain did not even discover it until a year ago. That would have been too late for pre-emptive action ? such as the launch of a deflecting spacecraft ? if it had been on a collision course with Earth.
Asteroid 2012 DA14, as it is known, passed harmlessly within 17,150 miles of Earth, zooming by at 17,400 mph, or 5 miles per second.
Scientists believe there are anywhere from 500,000 to 1 million "near-Earth" asteroids comparable in size to DA14 or bigger out there. But less than 1 percent have actually been spotted. Astronomers have catalogued only 9,600 of them, of which nearly 1,300 are bigger than 0.6 miles.
Earth's atmosphere gets hit with 100 tons of junk every day, most of it the size of sand, and most of it burning up before it reaches the ground, according to NASA.
"These fireballs happen about once a day or so, but we just don't see them because many of them fall over the ocean or in remote areas. This one was an exception," NASA's Jim Green, director of planetary science, said of the meteor in Russia.
A 100- to 130-foot asteroid exploded over Siberia in 1908 and flattened 825 square miles of forest, while the rock that is believed to have wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago was a monster 6 miles across.
The chances of Earth getting hit without warning by one of the big ones are "extremely low, so low that it's ridiculous. But the smaller ones are quite different," Schweickart said. He warned: "If we get hit by one of them, it's most likely we wouldn't have known anything about it before it hit."
Chodas said the meteor strike in Russia is "like Mother Nature is showing us what a small one ? a tiny one, really ? can do."
All this points up the need for more money for tracking of near-Earth objects, according to Schweickart and the former space shuttle and station astronaut who now heads up the B612 Foundation, Ed Lu.
A few years ago, Schweickart and others recommended NASA launch a $250 million-a-year program to survey asteroids and work up a deflection plan. After 10 years of cataloging, the annual price tag could drop to $75 million, they said.
"Unfortunately, NASA never acted on any of our recommendations," he lamented. "So the result of it is that instead of having $250 million a year and working on this actively, NASA now has $20 million. ... It's peanuts."
Congress immediately weighed in on Friday.
"Today's events are a stark reminder of the need to invest in space science," said Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, chairman of the House science, space and technology committee. He called for a hearing in the coming weeks.
Bill Cooke, head of the Meteoroid Environments Office at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., said the space agency takes asteroid threats seriously and has poured money into looking for ways to better spot them. Annual spending on asteroid-detection at NASA has gone from $4 million a few years ago to $20 million now.
"NASA has recognized that asteroids and meteoroids and orbital debris pose a bigger problem than anybody anticipated decades ago," Cooke said.
Schweickart's B612 Foundation ? named after the asteroid in Antoine de Saint-Exupery's "Le Petit Prince" ? has been unwilling to wait on the sidelines and is putting together a privately funded mission to launch an infrared telescope that would orbit the sun to hunt and track asteroids.
Its need cannot be underestimated, Schweickart warned. Real life is unlike movies such as "Armageddon" and "Deep Impact." Scientists will need to know 15, 20 or 30 years in advance of a killer rock's approach to undertake an effective asteroid-deflection campaign, he said, because it would take a long time for the spacecraft to reach the asteroid for a good nudge.
"That's why we want to find them now," he said.
As Chodas observed Friday, "It's like a shooting gallery here."
But some former astronauts want to give the world a fighting chance.
They're hopeful Friday's cosmic coincidence ? Earth's close brush with a 150-foot asteroid, hours after the 49-foot meteor struck in Russia ? will draw attention to the dangers lurking in outer space and lead to action, such as better detection and tracking of asteroids.
"After today, a lot of people will be paying attention," said Rusty Schweickart, who flew on Apollo 9 in 1969, helped establish the planet-protecting B612 Foundation and has been warning NASA for years to put more muscle and money into a heightened asteroid alert.
Earth is menaced all the time by meteors, which are chunks of asteroids or comets that enter Earth's atmosphere. But many if not most of them are simply too small to detect from afar with the tools now available to astronomers.
The meteor that shattered over the Ural Mountains was estimated to be 20 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima during World War II. It blew out thousands of windows and left more than 1,000 people injured in Chelyabinsk, a city of 1 million. And yet no one saw it coming; it was about the size of a bus.
"This is a tiny asteroid," said astronomer Paul Chodas, who works in NASA's Near-Earth Object program in Pasadena, Calif. "It would be very faint and difficult to detect ? not impossible, but difficult."
As for the three-times-longer asteroid that hurtled by Earth later in the day Friday, passing closer to the planet than some communications satellites, astronomers in Spain did not even discover it until a year ago. That would have been too late for pre-emptive action ? such as the launch of a deflecting spacecraft ? if it had been on a collision course with Earth.
Asteroid 2012 DA14, as it is known, passed harmlessly within 17,150 miles of Earth, zooming by at 17,400 mph, or 5 miles per second.
Scientists believe there are anywhere from 500,000 to 1 million "near-Earth" asteroids comparable in size to DA14 or bigger out there. But less than 1 percent have actually been spotted. Astronomers have catalogued only 9,600 of them, of which nearly 1,300 are bigger than 0.6 miles.
Earth's atmosphere gets hit with 100 tons of junk every day, most of it the size of sand, and most of it burning up before it reaches the ground, according to NASA.
"These fireballs happen about once a day or so, but we just don't see them because many of them fall over the ocean or in remote areas. This one was an exception," NASA's Jim Green, director of planetary science, said of the meteor in Russia.
A 100- to 130-foot asteroid exploded over Siberia in 1908 and flattened 825 square miles of forest, while the rock that is believed to have wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago was a monster 6 miles across.
The chances of Earth getting hit without warning by one of the big ones are "extremely low, so low that it's ridiculous. But the smaller ones are quite different," Schweickart said. He warned: "If we get hit by one of them, it's most likely we wouldn't have known anything about it before it hit."
Chodas said the meteor strike in Russia is "like Mother Nature is showing us what a small one ? a tiny one, really ? can do."
All this points up the need for more money for tracking of near-Earth objects, according to Schweickart and the former space shuttle and station astronaut who now heads up the B612 Foundation, Ed Lu.
A few years ago, Schweickart and others recommended NASA launch a $250 million-a-year program to survey asteroids and work up a deflection plan. After 10 years of cataloging, the annual price tag could drop to $75 million, they said.
"Unfortunately, NASA never acted on any of our recommendations," he lamented. "So the result of it is that instead of having $250 million a year and working on this actively, NASA now has $20 million. ... It's peanuts."
Congress immediately weighed in on Friday.
"Today's events are a stark reminder of the need to invest in space science," said Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, chairman of the House science, space and technology committee. He called for a hearing in the coming weeks.
Bill Cooke, head of the Meteoroid Environments Office at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., said the space agency takes asteroid threats seriously and has poured money into looking for ways to better spot them. Annual spending on asteroid-detection at NASA has gone from $4 million a few years ago to $20 million now.
"NASA has recognized that asteroids and meteoroids and orbital debris pose a bigger problem than anybody anticipated decades ago," Cooke said.
Schweickart's B612 Foundation ? named after the asteroid in Antoine de Saint-Exupery's "Le Petit Prince" ? has been unwilling to wait on the sidelines and is putting together a privately funded mission to launch an infrared telescope that would orbit the sun to hunt and track asteroids.
Its need cannot be underestimated, Schweickart warned. Real life is unlike movies such as "Armageddon" and "Deep Impact." Scientists will need to know 15, 20 or 30 years in advance of a killer rock's approach to undertake an effective asteroid-deflection campaign, he said, because it would take a long time for the spacecraft to reach the asteroid for a good nudge.
"That's why we want to find them now," he said.
As Chodas observed Friday, "It's like a shooting gallery here."
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- 14,048
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- 681
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- 113
An asteroid that is not as close this time:
QE2 asteroid to fly by Earth from safe distance | US National Headlines | Comcast
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) ? An asteroid more than 1? miles long will zoom past Earth this week from a far-off distance.
The big rock called Asteroid 1998 QE2 will make its closest approach Friday. It will keep a safe distance of 3.6 million miles, or 15 times the distance between Earth and the moon. You won't be able to see it without a powerful telescope.
It's believed to be about 1.7 miles long, or about nine times the length of the Queen Elizabeth 2 cruise ship. But that has nothing to do with its name. The letters and number in the name represent the timing and sequence of the asteroid's discovery in 1998.
Scientists will use large radar telescopes to study its shape, rotation and surface features.
QE2 asteroid to fly by Earth from safe distance | US National Headlines | Comcast
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) ? An asteroid more than 1? miles long will zoom past Earth this week from a far-off distance.
The big rock called Asteroid 1998 QE2 will make its closest approach Friday. It will keep a safe distance of 3.6 million miles, or 15 times the distance between Earth and the moon. You won't be able to see it without a powerful telescope.
It's believed to be about 1.7 miles long, or about nine times the length of the Queen Elizabeth 2 cruise ship. But that has nothing to do with its name. The letters and number in the name represent the timing and sequence of the asteroid's discovery in 1998.
Scientists will use large radar telescopes to study its shape, rotation and surface features.
- Joined
- Mar 16, 2010
- Messages
- 14,048
- Reaction score
- 681
- Points
- 113
QE2 asteroid has its own 2000ft moon.
Giant asteroid and its moon set to fly by Earth | Watch XFINITY Videos Online | News | Comcast
Giant asteroid and its moon set to fly by Earth | Watch XFINITY Videos Online | News | Comcast
anything with its own moon is one big ass fucking rock!
- Joined
- Mar 16, 2010
- Messages
- 14,048
- Reaction score
- 681
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- 113
Russian fireball shows meteor risk may be bigger | General Headlines | Comcast
Russian fireball shows meteor risk may be bigger
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Scientists studying the terrifying meteor that exploded without warning over a Russian city last winter say the threat of space rocks smashing into Earth is bigger than they thought.
Meteors about the size of the one that streaked through the sky at 42,000 mph and burst over Chelyabinsk in February ? and ones even larger and more dangerous ? are probably four, five or even seven times more likely to hit the planet than scientists believed before the fireball, according to three studies published Wednesday in the journals Nature and Science.
That means about 20 million space rocks the size of the Chelyabinsk one may be zipping around the solar system, instead of 3 million, NASA scientist Paul Chodas said at a news conference.
Until Chelyabinsk, NASA had looked only for space rocks about 100 feet wide and bigger, figuring there was little danger below that.
This meteor was only 62 feet across but burst with the force of 40 Hiroshima-type atom bombs, scientists say. Its shock wave shattered thousands of windows, and its flash temporarily blinded 70 people and caused dozens of skin-peeling sunburns just after dawn in icy Russia. More than 1,600 people in all were injured.
Up until then, scientists had figured a meteor causing an airburst like that was a once-in-150-years event, based on how many space rocks have been identified in orbit. But one of the studies now says it is likely to happen once every 30 years or so, based on how often these things are actually hitting.
By readjusting how often these rocks strike and how damaging even small ones can be, "those two things together can increase the risk by an order of magnitude," said Mark Boslough, a Sandia National Lab physicist, co-author of one of the studies.
Lindley Johnson, manager of NASA's Near Earth Object program, which scans the heavens for dangerous objects, said the space agency is reassessing what size rocks to look for and how often they are likely to hit.
In addition, NASA this fall reactivated a dormant orbiting telescope called WISE specifically to hunt for asteroids, Johnson said. And the agency is expanding ground-based sky searches.
At the same time, NASA and the Federal Emergency Management Agency are looking into the need for evacuations in the case of an asteroid headed for Earth and how to keep the public informed without scaring people.
Those issues came up after the two agencies quietly held a disaster drill last spring in Washington that was meant to simulate what would happen if a space rock slightly bigger than the Chelyabinsk one threatened the East Coast.
During the drill, when it looked as if the meteor would hit just outside the nation's capital, experts predicted 78,000 people could die. But when the mock meteor ended up in the ocean, the fake damage featured a 49-foot tsunami and shortages of supplies along the East Coast, according to an after-action report obtained by The Associated Press.
The exercise and the studies show there's a risk from smaller space rocks that strike before they are detected ? not just from the giant, long-seen-in-advance ones like in the movie "Armageddon," said Bill Ailor, a space debris expert at the Aerospace Corporation who helped coordinate the drill.
"The biggest hazard from asteroids right now is the city-busting airbursts, not the civilization-busting impacts from 1-kilometer-diameter objects that has so far been the target of most astronomical surveys," Purdue University astronomer Jay Melosh, who wasn't part of the studies, wrote in an email.
"Old-fashioned civil defense, not Bruce Willis and his atom bombs, might be the best insurance against hazards of this kind."
Chodas said the Chelyabinsk rock surprised astronomers because it was coming from the direction of the sun and was not detectable. Telescopes can see some space rocks as small as 3 feet wide, but some are simply too dark to spot, he said.
Scientists said a 1908 giant blast over Siberia, a 1963 airborne explosion off the coast of South Africa, and others were of the type that is supposed to happen less than once a century, or in the case of Siberia, once every 8,000 years, yet they all occurred in a 105-year timespan.
Because more than two-thirds of Earth is covered with water and other vast expanses are uninhabited deserts and ice, other past fireballs could have gone unnoticed.
Just this week, NASA got a wake-up call on those bigger space rocks that astronomers thought they had a handle on, discovering two 12-mile-wide asteroids and a 1.2-mile-wide one that had escaped their notice until this month. However, NASA said the three objects won't hit Earth.
Asteroids are space rocks that circle the sun as leftovers of failed attempts to form planets billions of years ago. When asteroids enter Earth's atmosphere, they become meteors. (When they hit the ground, they are called meteorites.)
The studies said the Chelyabinsk meteor probably split off from a much bigger space rock.
What happened in the Russian city of 1 million people is altering how astronomers look at a space rocks. With first-of-its-kind video, photos, satellite imagery and the broken-up rock, scientists have been able to piece together the best picture yet of what happens when an asteroid careens into Earth's atmosphere. It's not pretty.
"I certainly never expected to see something of this scale or this magnitude," said University of Western Ontario physicist Peter Brown, lead author of one study. "It's certainly scary."
Scientists said the unusually shallow entry of the space rock spread out its powerful explosion, limiting its worst damage but making a wider area feel the effects. When it burst it released 500 kilotons of energy, scientists calculated.
"We were lucky. This could have easily gone the other way. It was really dangerous," said NASA meteor astronomer Peter Jenniskens, co-author of one of the papers. "This was clearly extraordinary. Just stunning."
Russian fireball shows meteor risk may be bigger
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Scientists studying the terrifying meteor that exploded without warning over a Russian city last winter say the threat of space rocks smashing into Earth is bigger than they thought.
Meteors about the size of the one that streaked through the sky at 42,000 mph and burst over Chelyabinsk in February ? and ones even larger and more dangerous ? are probably four, five or even seven times more likely to hit the planet than scientists believed before the fireball, according to three studies published Wednesday in the journals Nature and Science.
That means about 20 million space rocks the size of the Chelyabinsk one may be zipping around the solar system, instead of 3 million, NASA scientist Paul Chodas said at a news conference.
Until Chelyabinsk, NASA had looked only for space rocks about 100 feet wide and bigger, figuring there was little danger below that.
This meteor was only 62 feet across but burst with the force of 40 Hiroshima-type atom bombs, scientists say. Its shock wave shattered thousands of windows, and its flash temporarily blinded 70 people and caused dozens of skin-peeling sunburns just after dawn in icy Russia. More than 1,600 people in all were injured.
Up until then, scientists had figured a meteor causing an airburst like that was a once-in-150-years event, based on how many space rocks have been identified in orbit. But one of the studies now says it is likely to happen once every 30 years or so, based on how often these things are actually hitting.
By readjusting how often these rocks strike and how damaging even small ones can be, "those two things together can increase the risk by an order of magnitude," said Mark Boslough, a Sandia National Lab physicist, co-author of one of the studies.
Lindley Johnson, manager of NASA's Near Earth Object program, which scans the heavens for dangerous objects, said the space agency is reassessing what size rocks to look for and how often they are likely to hit.
In addition, NASA this fall reactivated a dormant orbiting telescope called WISE specifically to hunt for asteroids, Johnson said. And the agency is expanding ground-based sky searches.
At the same time, NASA and the Federal Emergency Management Agency are looking into the need for evacuations in the case of an asteroid headed for Earth and how to keep the public informed without scaring people.
Those issues came up after the two agencies quietly held a disaster drill last spring in Washington that was meant to simulate what would happen if a space rock slightly bigger than the Chelyabinsk one threatened the East Coast.
During the drill, when it looked as if the meteor would hit just outside the nation's capital, experts predicted 78,000 people could die. But when the mock meteor ended up in the ocean, the fake damage featured a 49-foot tsunami and shortages of supplies along the East Coast, according to an after-action report obtained by The Associated Press.
The exercise and the studies show there's a risk from smaller space rocks that strike before they are detected ? not just from the giant, long-seen-in-advance ones like in the movie "Armageddon," said Bill Ailor, a space debris expert at the Aerospace Corporation who helped coordinate the drill.
"The biggest hazard from asteroids right now is the city-busting airbursts, not the civilization-busting impacts from 1-kilometer-diameter objects that has so far been the target of most astronomical surveys," Purdue University astronomer Jay Melosh, who wasn't part of the studies, wrote in an email.
"Old-fashioned civil defense, not Bruce Willis and his atom bombs, might be the best insurance against hazards of this kind."
Chodas said the Chelyabinsk rock surprised astronomers because it was coming from the direction of the sun and was not detectable. Telescopes can see some space rocks as small as 3 feet wide, but some are simply too dark to spot, he said.
Scientists said a 1908 giant blast over Siberia, a 1963 airborne explosion off the coast of South Africa, and others were of the type that is supposed to happen less than once a century, or in the case of Siberia, once every 8,000 years, yet they all occurred in a 105-year timespan.
Because more than two-thirds of Earth is covered with water and other vast expanses are uninhabited deserts and ice, other past fireballs could have gone unnoticed.
Just this week, NASA got a wake-up call on those bigger space rocks that astronomers thought they had a handle on, discovering two 12-mile-wide asteroids and a 1.2-mile-wide one that had escaped their notice until this month. However, NASA said the three objects won't hit Earth.
Asteroids are space rocks that circle the sun as leftovers of failed attempts to form planets billions of years ago. When asteroids enter Earth's atmosphere, they become meteors. (When they hit the ground, they are called meteorites.)
The studies said the Chelyabinsk meteor probably split off from a much bigger space rock.
What happened in the Russian city of 1 million people is altering how astronomers look at a space rocks. With first-of-its-kind video, photos, satellite imagery and the broken-up rock, scientists have been able to piece together the best picture yet of what happens when an asteroid careens into Earth's atmosphere. It's not pretty.
"I certainly never expected to see something of this scale or this magnitude," said University of Western Ontario physicist Peter Brown, lead author of one study. "It's certainly scary."
Scientists said the unusually shallow entry of the space rock spread out its powerful explosion, limiting its worst damage but making a wider area feel the effects. When it burst it released 500 kilotons of energy, scientists calculated.
"We were lucky. This could have easily gone the other way. It was really dangerous," said NASA meteor astronomer Peter Jenniskens, co-author of one of the papers. "This was clearly extraordinary. Just stunning."
