Posted on 03/02/2018 3:24:26 PM PST by BenLurkin
An asteroid up to 1600ft in diameter is set to fly by Earth in the early hours of March 7. Named “2017 VR12”, NASA has called the object “potentially hazardous.”
But don’t worry—the space rock shouldn’t get closer than 900,000 miles from Earth. That’s far enough to stay safe, and maybe even close enough to watch on a home telescope.
Larger than the Empire State Building?
It is difficult to work out an asteroid’s size at great distance, but we can estimate. “The asteroid is a mere point of light in our telescopes: we cannot resolve its size that way,” Paul Chodas, manager of the Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, told Newsweek.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsweek.com ...
“And what if it were calculated to pass at a distance of 50 miles and be pulled into the earth’s gravitational field. What would we do?”
Women and minorities would be hardest hit
Trump’s fault.
We could put up a giant sign declaring Earth to be an "Asteroid Free Zone", then we would have nothing to worry about.
The most interesting way I’ve heard proposed is attaching a solar sail to an asteroid that is propelled by the Sun’s radiation, changing its course.
And what if it were calculated to land directly on your house - what would you do?
Regards,
Thanks BenLurkin. Guess that went okay. :^)
|
“What would we do?”
Look up?
A rock the size of the Empire State BLdg. could definitely take out a large city. At least no nuclear fallout.
This one is up to 1600ft in diameter — nearly a third of a mile — if it hit on land, it would end our civilization.
The Meteor Crater object was about 100 yards across (about one-fifth in three dimensions, or less than 1/125th the size of something 1500 ft in diameter) and dug a hole a quarter mile deep and over 3/4 mile wide, plus ignited everything flammable for probably dozens of miles, knocking down everything else.
You know, they say we are tracking these for early warning, but in the last two years there have been quite a few, surprise this is something we didn’t see events.
While I understand the distances, the number of oops seems high.
A set of orbiting observatories that use radar instead of optical telescopy is what is needed. Ten years ago, using a small subset of the data currently available, it was pronounced that the number of undiscovered large unknown objects was only about a tenth of what had been suspected. As you note, there continue to be these little surprises.
We’ll have to fund that right after we pay for a new Server for FR.
Which comes first, funding “sky watch” or the “wall?”
President Trump campaigned on the Wall and the need for same. It is on him if we don’t get it.
Sunkin Civ and KC Burke are campaigning on the need for SkyWarn, if the Earth is destroyed, it is on us — of course a fully funded Free Republic first.
One of these days...
If we knew a big one was coming in the next few years what could we do about it?
If we had a couple of years notice there are attempted diversions that could be mounted and launched in that time frame. There are discussions about different diversions on different objects — metallic versus, stone, versus blob of loose rocks.
It is the larger objects being discovered with two weeks event horizon that trouble me. If, instead, a new discovery is dead on impact course — two weeks is nothing. It isn’t only the time to mount the effort, get a craft in the right proximity, it is that the last few days of the approach takes a much larger diversion to be effective. If an object is diverted in its path by a small amount a year before it is timed to get here, a small diversion is all that is needed. A few days away, almost no diversion is enough to keep it out of the earth’s gravity well.
My understanding is that stray or long period unexpected comets are a whole ‘nother game due to greater speed of impact.
We’ll combine the two — then FR really will be in “the cloud”. ;^)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
