Note: this topic is from January 24, 2008.
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Posted on 01/24/2008 12:20:06 PM PST by NormsRevenge
An asteroid at least 500 feet long will make a rare close pass by Earth next week, but there is no chance of an impact, scientists reported Thursday.
The object, known as 2007 TU24, is expected to whiz by Earth on Tuesday with its closest approach at 334,000 miles, or about 1 1/2 times the distance of Earth to the moon.
The nighttime encounter should be bright enough for medium-sized telescopes to get a glimpse, said Don Yeomans, manager of the Near-Earth Object Program Office at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which tracks potentially dangerous space rocks.
However, next week's asteroid pass "has no chance of hitting, or affecting, Earth," Yeomans said.
An actual collision of a similar-sized object with Earth occurs on average every 37,000 years.
Spotted last October by the NASA-funded Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona, 2007 TU24 is estimated to be between 500 feet and 2,000 feet long. The next time an asteroid this size will fly this close to Earth will be in 2027.
Scientists plan to point the Goldstone radar telescope in California and the Arecibo radar telescope in Puerto Rico at the asteroid and observe its path before and after its closest approach to Earth. Researchers will use instruments to measure its rotation and composition.
The 2007 TU24 rendezvous comes a day before another asteroid is projected to pass close to Mars.
Scientists have effectively ruled out a collision between the Red Planet and the asteroid 2007 WD5, estimating it will pass at a distance of more than 16,000 miles from the Martian surface. Initial observations of the Mars-bound asteroid put the odds of an impact at 1 in 25 before dropping to 1 in 10,000.
I never claimed to be good. lol
You are standing on the edge now. You can't look outward, only across the universe. If you could look "infinitely" far, you would see the back of your head.
Good morning to you too, although I am in India, and it’s 7:30 PM here!
:)
I’m being the Devil’s Advocate, by saying that mass-energy conversions happen in both directions, and the number of times they occur is infinite. Local mass-energy exchanges allow a finite amount of mass to be converted to energy, reconverted to mass, and so forth, ad infinitum, each time providing the mass in question opportunities to form planets, moons and the like. So, there you have it, infinite probabilities.
Yes, the expanse of the void is infinite, the amount of matter may not be so. However, the amount is still astronomical enough to provide the opportunities for such (apparently) rare probabilities.
You said that the moon is critical for life to thrive. No argument from me here on that. However, I could also say that just because the Mars-sized object happened to crash into Earth, the lottery was struck and life followed. There is no way you can prove that such a lucky strike cannot happen elsewhere in the immensely vast universe.
Planets are formed and consumed all the time. Stars are born, stars collapse, stars explode, stars scatter mass all over, allowing for their re-gathering to form planets and sub-systems again.
Every element our bodies are made of, once started as mass particles in stars, and prior to that, bundles of energy.
PS: I may not be able to reply to the next message soon, since I am going away for the weekend.
Well, then that “loop of vision” where I am going to see the back of my head while I look ahead, is bounded, isn’t it? What’s giving it a boundary, and what is the expanse of the same?
Time and space are the boundary (4 dimensions). You can’t go outside that boundary.
Like the universe itself, you don’t have to be good, just persistent.
Some of those slapshots get through, after all. ;^)
Your first assertion is addressed, and, unfortunately, invalidated in the series that I recommended.
The formation of the moon, a “lucky strike”, is just one of the thousands (so far) of “coincidences” that are required for life here. Again, especially in Privileged and Case For, they address this. That was just one example.
Your assertion that planets/stars form and collapse all the time is addressed, and isn’t quite relevant, either. The timeline is one way, and the possibility of rocky/metalic planet formation, plus the absolute right star type (type G yellow is ideal, and RARE, ie, near unique), could only occur during a specific time since the big bang.
Perhaps it will hit the Democratic Convention.
Well, I did prove that the opportunities for the probabilities are infinite.
As for the (let’s say, humans) typing out Shakespeare, well the (humans), and Shakespeare are a linear extrapolation of the first chemicals that formed lifelike molecules, and gained complexity over the generations to form the variety of life, as seen now (this, if you believe in evolution).
So, what I’m trying to say is that the monkeys needn’t produce Shakespeare by chance. All that needs be done, to produce something as an alternative, and more/less impressive achievement, is for the situations that lead to the formation of simple lifeforms, to occur again. This, is not as astronomical in probability, when compared to sets of monkeys duplicating Shakespeare.
One could as well argue that because they took the hits, life thrived on Earth. As in, chance, again.
Actually, the moon didn't 'take' any hits for Earth. Earth has been pummeled just as many time (and probably more) than the moon has.The moon only looks worse because it doesn't have enough mass to generate the gravity necessary to create an atmosphere of wind and rain like earth.
The moon's scars are there forever. Earth's scars have been smoothed over and covered up by centuries of erosion caused by wind, rain and vegetation.
I would rather they were stuck by something they actually have needed for 150 years—the ability to use reason.
No you don’t understand. This is for real, them having reason would be science fiction. I don’t think anyone could make it up.
Yes, I had mentioned that the Earth is not spectacularly lucky from asteroid impacts, earlier on.
If the things line up in a particular way, the Earth WILL take hits.
Here is a quote lifted from coasttocoastam.com:
David Sereda . . . said that according to his contact at Lockheed, we may have sent a craft to divert the orbit of TU-24.
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Cheers!
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