Posted on 12/08/2017 9:25:30 AM PST by Red Badger
A MASSIVE asteroid that could have destroyed New York City skimmed past Earth – and NASA had no clue.
The large space rock – dubbed 2017 VL2 – passed the planet on November 9 at an astonishing distance of just 73,000 miles, which is considered tiny in space terms.
Space boffins think that if the rock measuring between 16 and 32 metres had hit, it could’ve wiped a major city such as New York off the map.
The rock belongs to the Apollo group of asteroids and was first seen at ATLAS-MLO observatory in Hawaii a day later.
It was travelling at a speed of 8.73km/s and would have caused catastrophic damage if it had made impact.
Now the asteroid has flown past Earth, it is not set to make another flyby until 2125.
NASA recently revealed a space rock the size of a mountain could hit the planet in 2036.
When first discovered in 2014, Apophis had a record-breaking collision risk of four on the Torino scale.
Steve Chesley, a NASA scientist, along with Paul Khodas from the space agency’s jet propulsion laboratory, predicted the collision will occur on April 13, 2036.
“Apophis has been one of those celestial bodies that has captured the public’s interest since it was discovered in 2004,” said Chesley.
“Updated computational techniques and newly available data indicate the probability of an Earth encounter on April 13, 2036, for Apophis has dropped from one-in-45,000 to about four-in-a million,” he added.
Sad, regrettable, unfortunate, natural disaster.....................
Apophis??? Wasn’t he the ultimate bad guy in Stargate SG 1?
I have always been suspect of earth ending scenarios.
A 32 meter size rock is tiny compared to earth...
Sort of like a grain of sand or smaller hitting a basketball...
Not convinced that much damage would occur...
Yes...................
Yes, and that neatly completes the thought.
Or mecca.
We will find
sooner or later
if Achmed'll pray
to a glowing crater...
In fairness to NASA, they would have noticed but they were busy reaching out to muslims.
Thanks Red Badger. Saying it could wipe out Mecca or Tehran, or even Moscow might be too provocative for a US journalist; the bright side is, so much of the country put on a big grin when it's NYC. :^)
BTW, all, there are no space rocks with a number greater than ZERO on the Torino scale, last time I checked. Aphophis will miss in 2029 and 2036, unless something drastic happens to its orbit (for example, if it were to strike some little piece of space debris, an unlikely event), but the 2029 encounter will be a mere 18000 miles, good excuse for a tailgater!
At one time, when there was less data available, the 2029 encounter had a chance of moving the trajectory (the term used was "keyhole") enough to make the 2036 even closer, but now that more is known, the 2036 will actually miss by 30 million miles.
This is a quarter mile wide rock, which in case you didn't know would be enough, probably, to annihilate nearly all human life if it were to strike in the middle of a populated continental landmass, and depending on which continent, could end civilization. IOW, no one in the muslim world would notice a difference.
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32 meters (roughly 100 feet) of somewhat coherent debris is all that was involved for the Tunguska blast (which was about 185 Hiroshima bombs' worth of energy) . A somewhat smaller chunk (20 meters) was all that was involved for Chelyabinsk. A piece of rock 32 meters across would be, uh, serious if it happened to hit a city.
4-13-2036 is a Sunday, so any needed last minute prayers of “Miss!” will be Christian ones They won’t earn any gratitude but they’ll get the job done.
New York city works for me.....makes Mexico City less relevant every time a bunch of hard left whack jobs stop plying their trade....
So a space rock can accurately target Manhattan and wipe it out?
That’s good shootin’.
Would anybody notice?.................
If we had only elected Hillary!, she would've taken care of Apophis…
I think its the enormous gravity of Obama’s ego that attracted it here in the first place?
Aphophis at the size of a mountain sounds like something we ought to begin work on yesterday for the 2029 pass. 1 in 250,000 or whatever is too damn large for me. I will be pretty old then but hopefully still on the “right side of the grass” as my dad used to say. I have ten grandchildren and they will all be young and enjoying life and I hope it stays that way.
it is not the size, but the speed... a 9 mm slug is rather small...
an asteroid brings a whole lot of baggage.
ghosts of vesuvius is a great read that illustrates mass of destruction...
Compassionate leftist: "Trump Tower gone??? Yay!!!!"
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