Earth almost put on impact alert

http://news.bbc.co.uk ^ | Tuesday, 24 February, 2004, 17:33 GMT | Dr. David Whitehouse

[John H K]

Where is the mailing list where such discussions take place? If amateur astronomers can be on it, we can lurk too. Might be fun!

Professional scientists have moved from USEnet to mailing lists to private invitation-only mailing lists to avoid all the bandwidth being taken up by "science kooks" prattling their nonsense theories and abusing actual scientists. It's a shame, because there are plenty of "amateurs" who don't cause trouble but the kooks are horrendous.

[John H K]

There's a range of estimates of your chances of dying in an asteroid impact, but interestingly the high end of the range is roughly equivalent to your chances of dying in an airplane crash.

[6ppc]

Actually it's: Hot Fudge Sundae falls on a Tuesdae this week (I think)!

[null and void]

Probably. I'm not where I can check right now. (I think it's next to Malevil, The Earth Abides, and Alas Babylon...)

[ngc6656]

but if it is coming right towards us it does not move- we can only tell it is coming by it growing brighter.

It isn't quite that simple for both the asteroid and Earth are in motion. If a just-discovered asteroid is say, three days from impact, it will strike Earth where Earth will be in its orbit 3 days hence. An asteroid approaching from directly ahead or behind along the direction of Earth's travel in its orbit would show little apparent motion; from any other direction, the asteroid's motion against the background stars would be more obvious. Think of it as two cars approaching one another on a one lane road in the first scenario and as two cars, one each on separate but crossing roads approaching a 90 degree intersection in the other.

[blam]

"That won't leave much time, and even then, what should the citizens do?"

Call up your Y2K critics and tell them you still have your supplies...then laugh.

[DBrow]

Did you read Footfall? The impact scene in that book caused the publisher to ask for an entire impact book, impacts were in the news, hence Lucifers Hammer.

Not to be confused with Colonel Alois Hammer!

[Poohbah]

Did you read Footfall? The impact scene in that book caused the publisher to ask for an entire impact book, impacts were in the news, hence Lucifers Hammer.

Wrong--Lucifer's Hammer was published about 8 years prior to Footfall.

[DBrow]

I went to a book signing and Niven was there. He told me his publisher looked at the outline for Footfall and suggested that they stop the Footfall project and write an impact novel instead.

[mewzilla]

It's the end of the world as we know it.
It's the end of the world as we know it.
It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Didn't even make the PHA Close Approaches to the Earth list:

PHAs

[DBrow]

A sort of reference- I can't find my copy of Playgrounds of the Mind but here is a Usenet ref to the same concept:
......................
> _Footfall_, with Jerry Pournelle
> Fairly self indulgent, and an obvious reworking of many of
> the same basic themes done better in _Lucifer's Hammer_.

That's because both came from the same idea. The alien-invasion story came
first, but the authors became so intrigued with the effects of the meteor
strike that they made it into "Lucifers Hammer". Later, they returned to the
original concept in "Footfall".
(As told by Larry Niven in "Playgrounds of the Mind")