Whoa! Earth gets close shave by newfound asteroid

MSNBC ^ | 12/11/12 | Mike Wall

[LibWhacker]

Another one.

[cotton1706]

Looks like the Mayans were a little off.

[stuartcr]

The planetary alignment scheduled for 12-21-12 is acting like a cosmic rail gun...we’ll probably be seeing more of these in the next week or so.

[wrench]

## Looks like the Mayans were a little off. ##

Maybe, maybe not. This may just be the small splinter preceding “the big one”.

[Mouton]

Any chance of steering one of these to a landing just north of the Potomac north of Arlington Va?

[b4its2late]

We need to come up with a name for this one. Asteroid 2012 XE54 ain't cutting it.

[EQAndyBuzz]

Maybe the X37B is a spacecraft that will land on an approaching asteroid and using a thermonuclear warhead, break the asteroid in two, whereby it misses the earth.

Only problem I see with this is a lack of redundancy. I would have sent up two X37B’s.

[Strategerist]

The planetary alignment scheduled for 12-21-12 is acting like a cosmic rail gun...we’ll probably be seeing more of these in the next week or so.

You mean the planetary alignment that doesn't exist, and even if it did, would have no effect on anything just like all past alignments?

[ILS21R]

MSNBC? Why plug them?

[null and void]

The only problem I see is your targeting, half for medina, half for meccah

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

This may just be the small splinter preceding “the big one”.

I hope so. I've had enough. Hit that 'reset' button already.

[Dead Corpse]

Was just having a similar thought. Kudos...

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

Any chance of steering one of these to a landing just north of the Potomac north of Arlington Va?

[MichaelCorleone]

***...zipping between our planet and the moon just two days after astronomers first spotted it.***

This was only discovered two days ago?

I thought space activity was monitored constantly via telescopes, space stations, satilites, etc.. Seems like this should have been anticipated long ago.

On the other hand, maybe it was and we were kept in the dark so as to prevent panic and/or suicides.

[John W]

According to A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson, if an asteroid were to come straight at us and destroy us, you’d probably have only about one second of warning before it happened. You wouldn’t get a day, or an hour. You would have one second, enough time to go “What the?” and then it’s all over.

Please note that I have not personally fact-checked this and I do not in any way endorse this information. Just putting it out there for conversational purposes.

[Verginius Rufus]

Maybe we can have a sit-com about it. Asteroid XE54, where are you?"

[b4its2late]

LOL

[brownsfan]

“This was only discovered two days ago?

I thought space activity was monitored constantly via telescopes, space stations, satilites, etc.. Seems like this should have been anticipated long ago.

On the other hand, maybe it was and we were kept in the dark so as to prevent panic and/or suicides.”

NASA is busy proving AGW, and doing muslim outreach.

This is off of their radar. (Very bad pun, intended).

[21twelve]

This happens once in awhile - seems like just a couple years ago the same thing happened where one passed between us and the moon and they saw it AFTER it went by.

Like grandma said “When its your time to go, its your time to go.”

[BlueStateRightist]

0bama still concerns me more.