Posted on 08/12/2017 8:21:52 AM PDT by MtnClimber
Every object in our Solar System that takes the plunge from out beyond Neptune to our inner reaches, where the rocky planets lie, will become a comet. As it nears the Sun, its ices melt, creating the tails we associate with them, and also creating a debris path that can create meteor showers if they cross Earth's orbit. For thousands of years, the most consistent, spectacular meteor shower has been the Perseids, created by Comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle.
At its incredibly large size (26 kilometers across) and speed, it contains nearly 30 times the energy of the asteroid strike that wiped out the dinosaurs. Over the next few thousand years, it will come perilously close to Earth. If Jupiter — which it also passes by — gives it just the slightest gravitational kick, it could be flung into the Sun, ejected from the Solar System, or hurtled directly into our world. If this were to happen, and it's a real possibility some 2400 years from now, it would mark the largest mass extinction our world has seen in hundreds of millions of years.
Every August, the Perseid meteor shower delights skywatchers everywhere. While some years it's a disappointment, either being washed out by a bright Moon or delivering a relatively sparse stream of particles for Earth to collide with, other years the show is spectacular. This year, the waning gibbous Moon will wash out about half the meteors, making the best time to view it just after sunset, before the Moon rises.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
Don't forget the children too!
What? We can’t blame this on global warming?
Wait, wait,......
I know it’s because Trump pulled out of the Paris agreement.
You’re right, it is Trump’s fault!
Forbes has been working methodically and diligently for months to make their site totally unreadable from an iPhone. Today they have finally succeeded. I will have to wait till I’m on my computer to read this article, that looks interesting.
“Humanity ends. Women and Minorities hardest hit”
-NYT headline
Dang it — I missed your post!
Oh well — GMTA
I posted this because the Perseids meteor shower peaks tonight.
The article has a good photo of the comet from 1992. I saw it without a telescope.
Compared to all the other real or imaginary possibilities that may spell the end of humanity, this one has to rank very low in the range of probabilities. We are in WAY more danger from Kim Jong Un, as a means of “end of humanity” than we are by a chance encounter with a shower of meteors.
The operative word here is “might”, Then again, there is the very high probability that all these events “might not” affect mankind in any significant way, shape, manner, or form.
Thanks. I didn’t get past the second paragraph!
Ok, I received the transmission.
The Perseids peak tonight.
My uncle has a long mustache.
I love it! But we’ve got to wait another 2400 years -— grrr.
Maybe burn up but still we’d get to watch it for
eight minutes.
I’d have to go pick some mushrooms for that.
The sun is shining
But the ice is slippery
It'll be here before you know it.
This sucker is 16 miles wide. Whoah Nelly. Long before 2400 yrs from now we would be able to divert it from hitting the earth.
I would’ve went to Forbes to read the rest of the article but the site won’t let me in unless I disable my ad-blocker software. Like going to Forbes is some great privilege, get bent.
Not if it happened at night.
Modern astronomy seems able to predict when a comet will come within the vacinity of Earth making a hit possible. But the Earth is a tiny target in that vacinity so a hit is very unlikely.
That is wise.
However at some point in the future odds are we will get hit. So it is important that we figure out a way off this dirt ball and on to another one. Ideally, several other ones.
The Comet That Created The Perseids Might Bring An End To Humanity
—
Stuff HaPPens.
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