Earth almost put on impact alert

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

[2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten]

One effect of something like this could be a nuclear nation (India, Pakistan, U.S., U.S.S.R. etc.) mistaking the space rock for a weapon launched by an adversary and retaliating accordingly.

[G.Mason]

"If I can't get out of the way in time, don't even tell me about it."

You can't. They won't.

Now unload your SUV ;)

[GSWarrior]

Of course I remember.

I've just about finished reading Alas Babylon. It's pretty good, but not as large in scope as Lucifer's Hammer.

[CygnusXI]

"And 2004 AS1? It turned out to be bigger than anyone had thought - about 500m wide. It eventually passed the Earth at a distance of about 12 million km - 32 times the Earth-Moon distance, posing no danger to us whatsoever."

Toutatis (4179)

ETA 9-29-04 appx 1300

Size appx 2.5 Miles across

Distance .01AU, or appx 4 Lunar Dist.

EOM..

[Mr. K]

I guess my point is that the one that hits us is the hardest to detect early.

People need to know more on that point because if one DOES hit they will ask "What did W know and when did he know it?" - you know what I mean?

[Larry Lucido]

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

Is there any equivalent of doppler-radar that can detect the speed of a seemingly stationary object headed toward the earth?

[GeraldP]

Scientific American had an interesting article titled "Asteroid Tugboat" a couple of months ago. I wonder if anyone has a copy of it?

[Mr. K]

I'm not certain, but thats a pretty good question- it is an awful big sky and sending a signal and hearing a response may be a way to detect something like that.

The response would travel at the speed of light so we might now get responses for hours (or days) and the reflection may be pretty weak.

[Indie]

In actuality you're right. The most likely scenario for an impact will be...impact. No warning.

[Ditter]

I am ready to go, if you know what I mean. ;9)

[willgolfforfood]

I think the space rock that made the impact crater in Arizona (approx. 1 mile diameter) was estimated to be only 50 feet across. About 1/2 the size of this one.

FYI...

[PsyOp]

API Berkely - Upon hearing the news of near miss by a "big space rock", representative Zynthia McKinney demanded to know what Bush Knew and when he knew it. Kerry blames the lack of credible information on the CIA and says that if he were president would have done something about this problem much sooner. Howard dean was unavailable for comment due to "primal scream" practice.

[1ofmanyfree]

I'm with ya'. Let's do it! Let us know what you find... post it here.

[1ofmanyfree]

You are correct! We have a winner!

[GeraldP]

>>> That is some meteorite! Even bigger than Albania. Seriously, though, a lot more would be happening in such a collision than what shows in the artist's rendering. The meteorite would already be coming apart due to earth's gravity, and there would probably be some major electrical effects. The waves and ripples around the impact site wouldn't be forming immediately; the impact would be in slow motion on that scale, but not so slow that land waves would move relatively that fast.

Few people know Albanians are actually the descendants of inhabitants of Atlantis who escaped a "global killer" underground, only to resurface having forgotten most of their technological knowledge. (kidding of course)

I am trying to picture a "relatively" small black hole colliding with a planet, but my amateurish knowledge in Physics and Astronomy seems to fail me past the point where the Earth is (possibly) incinerated by Sun-fuel spiraling toward it.

[1ofmanyfree]

Los Alamos is working on it...

[Larry Lucido]

That's what I was afraid of. It's apparently not as easy as, say, clocking a fast pitch from Nolan Ryan.

[RightWhale]

a "relatively" small black hole colliding with a planet

There were some images of a star being ripped apart by a black hole just last week. Might even be an FR thread. A planet wouldn't do any better than a star. Every speck of dust of the planet would be scattered. There would be nothing left but the dust cloud, although some of the dust might re-accrete into a planet again later.

[BurtS188]

I love that book.

[Dixie Pirate]

Like as if they would ever tell us prior to such an event, anyway???