Asteroid Shaves Past Earth's Atmosphere

New Scientist ^ | 8-23-2004 | Jeff Hecht

[fishtank]

This is Bush's fault!!!

[laishly]

Finding these things at the last moment is not supposed to be the point! Oh well. I guess when they tell us about the BIG one hitting before we can do anything about it, I will have time to take a shower!

[bert]

The object is described as an asteroid. It was only 5 to 10 meters across.

For my education....

Are all meteors asteroids?

At what size does an object achieve the status of asteroid?

[evets]

The timing of this event is 'questionable'.

[martin_fierro]

[Fierce Allegiance]

[Thrusher]

Bush and his evil cronies at the Carlyle Group have been manipulating asteroid paths (using subspace magnetic harmonics secretly developed by Halliburton and hidden in the Hubble 'telescope') since 1983. They know that an asteroid strike in a blue state at this point in the election run-up would not only kill hundreds of thousands of registered democratic voters and automatically win him the election, it will also give Dick Cheney an excuse to take over the U.N. from an undisclosed location in his shadow government laboratory deep underground. The only reason this asteroid didn't kill half of California is because of Ben Affleck, Alec Baldwin and Barbra Streisand's covert mission to divert its path by the sheer enormous interstellar anti-gravity of their own behemothic egos.

[fishtank]

I agree. We need to get back to discussing the issues.

[The_Victor]

Finding these things at the last moment is not supposed to be the point!

Quite frankly, knowing in advance would enable us to do anything about it right now. Remedies at this point are all conceptual.

[Husker24]

A meteor is just an asteroid that has entered the earths atmosphere, a meteorite is a meteor that has landed.

[Hatteras]

"Are all meteors asteroids?"

You bet Uranus!

[The_Victor]

Dang spell check didn't catch my grammatical error.

would = wouldn't.

[Thrusher]

I was a meteor before I was an asteroid.

[reagan_fanatic]

Yet another pathetic attempt by the Swifties to marginalize war hero Kerry.

[Atlas Sneezed]

At what size does an object achieve the status of asteroid?

---

Public-school idiots at work.

Here is a reference to provide some perspective:

"In 1908, a relatively small comet or meteroid crashed into the upper atmosphere of the Earth above Tunguska, Siberia in Russia...Even though no debris from the impactor has been found at the Tunguska site, some planetary astronomers now believe the cause was a meteoroid about 80 m in diameter..."

Asteroids are larger than meteroids, and the Tunguska meteroid was 500-5000 times as massive as this little stone.

[blackdog]

We have a close friend who collects chunks of meterorites which have pounded the earth in numbers most likely in the millions range. They are bought and sold in chunks by a crowd who will go to any lengths to obtain them.

Why is this news? I guess because we fund experts to warn us of them now? Maybe if we stopped funding the experts, life could resume with a little less fear of events which have been taking place on this earth since it's messy hot formation?

[blackdog]

We have a close friend who collects chunks of meterorites which have pounded the earth in numbers most likely in the millions range. They are bought and sold in chunks by a crowd who will go to any lengths to obtain them.

Why is this news? I guess because we fund experts to warn us of them now? Maybe if we stopped funding the experts, life could resume with a little less fear of events which have been taking place on this earth since it's messy hot formation?

[Atlas Sneezed]

The news here is not that an object came close, but that observational capabilities are getting so good that little things that have always flown nearby (and sometimes entered the atmosphere and impacted) are now being detected.

The day will come that we will get advance warning of spectacular fireball meteors, and scientists will study their entry, and will go to the site to try ti "catch" the remaining meterorite, if any. Just like eclipses, people will travel to see such events.

[Quix]

LOL!

Well written!

Alas, without the "/sar" and given the size of the population of lurking DU'ers and other DIMRATS,

some idiots are likely to actually believe you!