"I will personally see to the destruction of the Tauri home world!"
Posted on 12/09/2005 9:07:47 AM PST by emiller
LONDON — Scientists are monitoring the progress of a 390m-wide asteroid discovered last year that is potentially on a collision course with the planet, and are imploring governments to decide on a strategy for dealing with it.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has estimated that an impact from Apophis, which has an outside chance of hitting the Earth in 2036, would release more than 100,000 times the energy released in the nuclear blast over Hiroshima.
Thousands of square kilometres would be directly affected by the blast but the whole of the Earth would see the effects of the dust released into the atmosphere. In Egyptian myth, Apophis was the ancient spirit of evil and destruction, a demon that was determined to plunge the world into eternal darkness.
The experts fear that there is very little time left to decide.
(Excerpt) Read more at todayonline.com ...
Well, here we are, we've done nothing in space for years. The experiments on the last few space shuttle missions pretty much sounded like the astronauts were taking bar bets, our country is in debt -- BUT--- Magically, the U.S., and bunches of other countries have found the time, energy, and bucks to launch mission after mission to asteroids/comets. Huh?
WHAT IS UP??!! Is it becuase of little Apophis? Or has someone in some observatory found something even nastier coming? And they won't tell us, becuase they'd fear we'd panic. And these days, yes, people would panic big time.
ANyway, do you folks agree something weird is going on? I mean, aren't 2 new missions set to lifet off soon? One from the E.U., and I forget the other. japan is there now. This is freaky.
We are so dead... ha
We've got three missions to Mars and 2 to Jupiter They must be heading our way too!
What good would panicking do? Just leave........./s
As long as it lands in France, what do we care?
Notice they didn't say what the "outside chance" amounts to in percentages. I think I'll not worry about this one.
Look, I'll answer this post soon enough but first, I want everyone to know that I am still not prepared for the 'Bird Flue'! I'ts just not fair!!
Is this the Planet X that is coming?
100,000 more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb does not scare me.
Let me know if the asteroid passes through the keyhole in 2029.
Well hopefully I will be out of town if we are hit by an earth destroying asteroid
Nah... The Earth is going to collide with the celestial axis.
There goes the neighborhood. I was thinking about moving anyway.
" Youg got asteroids?"
"No but my dad does, can't even sit on the toilet sometimes."
If true then it sounds like they're working on the problem so I'm not going to panic. I will however get an early start on the lootin.
Article: Apophis, which has an outside chance of hitting the Earth in 2036
From a NASA website (http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/risk/a99942.html: Impact Probability (cumulative) 0.018%
Sounds like someone is going a little crazy on the headline.
When in danger, when in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout.
Let me see, I'll be 93 something to look forward to.
"I will personally see to the destruction of the Tauri home world!"
With 30 years lead time, I'm not going to worry about it. If we are ever capable of deflecting an asteroid, 25 years from now is the time to worry.
For now, I'm going to think that this could be a good deal.....as in resources coming within easy reach just about the time we'll be ready to take advantage of it.
This is OK. It will end the debate on what to do about Global Warming in 2050.
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