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 ...
Apophis - an alien driven space taxi coming to take all believers away.
Get your spankin' white Nikes, jogging suit, and poisoned pudding ready.
This was the ride that the Heaven's Gate crew wanted. They nixed themselves for the wrong rock.
Is George Noory all over this?
I was driving and listening to him the other night...do you ever notice that he can have a guest that will blab on and on for an hour, and then at the end, you have slightest idea what the hell he was talking about? George always seems to know though, as his gobbledygook questions always elicit such enthusiasm from the guest.
There's not a thing we could do about it anyway.
However, the chances of this thing hitting us in the foreseeable future are about 1 in 8000 so I wouldn't get too upset.
Ping.
Read the Bible to see how the world ends.
There may be initial panic, and the stock market would hate it, but I feel the panic would be short lived. I feel that with enough focus and resources, we could come up with a solution in 30 years.
Normal (Green Zone) 1. A routine discovery in which a pass near the Earth is predicted that poses no unusual level of danger. Current calculations show the chance of collision is extremely unlikely with no cause for public attention or public concern. New telescopic observations very likely will lead to re-assignment to Level 0.
You need some new friends and get back on your meds.
You might want to read Lucifer's Hammer by Pournelle and Niven. A comet was heading towards Earth, but the odds against it hitting were billions to one. Then, millions to one, then...
What an incredible coincience!
The earth has existed for billions of years, and - wouldn't you know it - as soon as we start looking out there for things that might hit us, it turns out we find one!
/sarc
Or more accurately, 24 years from now. That's when this asteroid is set to approach close enough for the Earth's gravity to possibly alter its trajectory enough to hit on the pass in 2036 - if it goes through a 'keyhole' in space about 641m wide.
Ummm, what exactly are we supposed to do about it anyway, politely ask it to move a little to one side or the other? Any real solution would probably involve some sort of nuclear warhead mounted on a space-bound missile, and even that's probably the stuff of bad sci-fi movies. As if the liberals would allow us to build the nuke or the missile in the first place even if it were possible.
Barring that, I guess we're left with the typical leftist "solution" - create a huge new bureaucracy to "study the problem", impose a global tax to fund it, and then sit around pissing and moaning and hysterically screeching "We're DOOMED!!!!" Oh, and blame it on Bush and Halliburton, of course.
Ok so say it does hit, chances are it will hit water right, let's look at the bright side, the tidal wave to follow will at least take out half of our liberals - see there is a silver lining in every cloud right? (Sarc off)
"There goes the neighborhood. I was thinking about moving anyway."
LOL! Wonder what the impact will be on the housing market?!
And of course, when it hits, I'm sure women and children will be hit hardest!
The bigger question is what is Bush doing about this???
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.