Posted on 03/30/2002 5:18:49 PM PST by Pokey78
SCIENTISTS have detected a huge asteroid which is on a collision course for Earth. But relax — it won’t arrive for another 878 years. The asteroid, more than half a mile in diameter, is similar in size to the one thought to have plunged into the sea off Mexico 65m years ago, depriving the earth of light and wiping out the dinosaurs. Jon Giorgini and Steve Ostro of Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who led the team that carried out the research, warn that the asteroid has a greater chance of hitting the earth than any of the thousands of other cosmic rocks tracked to date. They say the encounter will be “extremely close” — with a one in 300 risk of impact. By contrast, the chances of winning Britain’s weekly lottery draw are about one in 14m. The warning follows data collected last year when the rock, codenamed Asteroid 1950DA, made its closest approach to earth since it was discovered 52 years ago. Astronomers working for Nasa, the American space agency, tracked it with the world’s largest radar dish, at Arecibo in Puerto Rico. They had hoped to prove a scientific point about the value of radar in astronomy — but to their horror found themselves looking instead at a rock that could spell the end of mankind. The results showed the huge spherical rock swinging in and out of the inner solar system with its highly elliptical orbit bringing it ever closer to impact.Armageddon day comes on March 16, 2880, when the asteroid’s path leads it directly across the earth’s orbit. At such close distances and long timescales the exact behaviour of the asteroid is impossible to predict. It could hurtle by in the narrowest of misses — or be captured by earth’s gravity, punch a hole in the atmosphere and smash to earth. Wherever such a rock landed it could potentially pierce the earth’s crust, generate tidal waves and throw vast clouds of dust and debris into the air. Last year a government-appointed task force recommended setting up a global network of telescopes to monitor such risks. The research team, including scientists from Washington State University and the California Institute of Technology, have posted their results on the internet. A scientific paper is to be published this week.
At the rate the govenment works, every one of those 878 years will be needed just to write the EIS - the Environmental Impact Study. Uh-oh, EIS has the I-word in it. Bad juju, Bwana.
What the heck, we'll probably wait a couple-hundred years before worrying about it much. At least wait that long before spending any money!!
March 31, 2880:
Yup, now you're talking.
The asteroid, more than half a mile in diameter, is similar in size to the one thought to have plunged into the sea off Mexico 65m years ago, depriving the earth of light and wiping out the dinosaurs.
Thank heaven there are no more dinosaurs to wipe out, I was really getting worried there for a moment:O(
In one astronomy course I took, they said almost none of the craters on the moon are associated with lava flows; i.e., the impacts did not punch right through the moon's crust and release a huge flood of lava. I don't even think the Chicxulub (CHEEK-shoe-lube) impact that wiped out the dinosaurs is associated with any release of lava. And that asteroid was about six miles across.
So realistically, it would take an enormously huge impact on earth to do that, even if it happened to hit on the boundary of a continental plate. And if the impact were THAT huge, we'd have a lot more to worry about than just lava. IMHO, it's kind of strange that they would even mentioned the possiblity of a half-mile asteroid puncturing through the earth's crust.
The rock that got the Dinosaurs was about 10km (6 miles) in diameter. Half a mile won't get the job done.
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