I've been following along on this thread I initiated... interesting comments... your comment just made it seem appropriate to post this image of a recent (August 10, 1972) real NEAR miss:
Posted on 06/20/2002 8:43:49 AM PDT by cogitator
Asteroid gives Earth closest shave in years
PARIS (AFP) Jun 20, 2002 A football-pitch-sized asteroid capable of razing a major city came within a whisker of hitting the Earth on June 14, but was only spotted three days later, scientists said Thursday.
Asteroid 2002 MN, estimated at up to 120 metres (yards) long, hurtled by the Earth at a distance of 120,000 kilometers (75,000 miles), well within the orbit of the Moon and just a hair's breadth in galactic terms.
It is the closest recorded near-miss by any asteroid, with the exception of a 10-metre (33-feet) rock, 1994 XM1, which approached within 105,000 kilometers (65,000) miles on December 9, 1994, they said.
"2002 MN is a lightweight among asteroids and incapable of causing damage on a global scale, such as the object associated with the extinction of the dinosaurs," the Near Earth Object (NEO) Information Centre of Britain's National Space Centre said in a press release.
"However, if it had hit the Earth, 2002 MN may have caused local devastation similar to that which occurred in Tunguska, Siberia in 1908, when 2,000 square kilometres (800 square miles) of forest were flattened," it said.
Spokesman Kevin Yates told AFP that the asteroid was only spotted on June 17 -- three days after its flyby.
Had it collided with the Earth, "the most likely thing is that it would have detonated in the atmosphere, creating a blast wave," he said.
"You're talking in the region of 10 megatonnes -- quite a lot of energy to be released in any one place," he said.
The risk of the Earth being hit by an asteroid or comet is very remote, and most objects never come so close as 2002 MN.
NASA's Near-Earth Object (NEO) Program website confirmed the incident and said 2002 MN was spotted by the Lincoln Near Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR), a project funded by the US Air Force and NASA and located in New Mexico.
The website of the US magazine Sky et Telescope voiced alarm at the near miss.
"What is most shocking is just how close it came to Earth," it said.
"Though the exact details of an impact scenario depend on the rock's composition, had it hit the Earth, the event would have been 'Tunguska-like', with a force rivalling the largest H-bombs."
US and other astronomers are working hard to map large asteroids, greater than a kilometer (five-eighths of a mile) across, that could inflict lasting climate change.
One such monster is believed to have wacked into the Earth 65 million years ago in what is modern-day Mexico, kicking up dust and debris that swathed the planet, unleashing a prolonged winter that ended the long reign of the dinosaurs.
But many specialists are worried that little sustained effort is being made to spot smaller space wanderers, which could still unleash the energy of an arsenal of nuclear bombs if they collided with our home.
In addition, the search for dangerously asteroids is overwhelmingly conducted by telescopes in the northern hemisphere. A rock approaching from the southern hemisphere could go undetected.
Astronomers spot asteroids thanks to the light they reflect from the Sun, which means that smaller ones are frequently only discovered when they are very close to the Earth and become visible.
If one of these were on a collision course, that would leave no time to launch a rocket or missiles to try to deflect or destroy it, or even prepare cities for a potential disaster.
Asteroids are often described as the rubble left over from the building of the Solar System.
They orbit the Sun, but the paths are never eternal, for the trajectories can be deflected by gravitational pull whenever the asteroid passes by a planet or goes around the star itself.
The latest calculations of 2002 MN suggest it has an orbit of 894.9 days and is unlikely ever to be any future threat to the Earth, said Yates.
The next close flyby will be in 2061 but the distance will be much greater than in the June 14 episode, he said.
Asteroids are a very remote yet real peril, because they move at such speeds that they unleash terrific energy on impact.
The Tunguska event was caused by an object estimated to be 60 metresfeet) long. It exploded in the atmosphere with the force of 600 times the Hiroshima bomb.
There are a lot of doom and gloomers about Dec 21, 2012. That's the date of the Winter Solstice and the end of the Mayan sacred cycle of 1,872,000 days. This cycle began on the Winter Solstice in 3114 BC. A lot of people are loosing bladder control over this facet of Mayan astronomy, but I say; "heck: its just like an odometer change." the Mayans were into really big, big numbers. Dec 22, 2012 begins the start of the next Mayan sacred cycle, which will last for 1,872,000 days.
But then again, we'll all be hit by the Asteroid 1950 DA in March 2800 and there will be no space aliens to rescue us (as we're not interesting enough). So that will be it.
I've been following along on this thread I initiated... interesting comments... your comment just made it seem appropriate to post this image of a recent (August 10, 1972) real NEAR miss:
Something tells me that they're fully prepared for an earthshaking event soon. There's been an awful lot of comets recently. Something's going on.
There is no greater catastrophe than the collision of worlds.
You'll never get a flying car now. Suicidal pilots in NYC, Washington D.C., Pennsylvania, Florida and possibly Italy have seen to that.
The picture is of an asteroid actually "skipping" off the atmosphere I assume? Isn't it likely the one this post is about would have also "skipped" away, as opposed to a steep entry angle to impact? Do you know the angle of approach of the one in question?
Yes, this one skipped out. It isn't possible to figure out the entry angle of the recent flyby because it didn't hit us!
LOL! I thought word wrap was ALWAYS ON!!! Let me see if I turn it OFF what happens!
Well, I turned it OFF, but when I previewed, it turned it back ON! (Now see, when I had it OFF, and kept typing, my words just kept going and going and going and didn't make a new line break. But what the heck! It came back ON when I "previewed" it! LOL! What's it for?!
In late 1991, then-President of the Soviet Union/Russia Boris Yeltsin was informed by his advisors that a missile was headed toward the Soviet Union, and he was asked whether he wanted to launch a nuclear war against the United States. Yeltsin made a gut decision, and declined the offer. It turned out that the 'missile' was really just a sounding rocket launched by the Norwegians, whose letter of notification had been lost by the Soviet bureaucracy.
Imagine if a city-sized explosion occurred in Russia in those days. If it occurred today, would it be that much easier to stand down from a full nuclear alert?
It's estimated that 'Tunguska'-type impacts happen about once every century. So we're due for another one.
It would be nice to be prepared, rather than panicked.
Near miss?...What did it hit?
So are we to expect more? Close shaves?
This latest meteor/asteroid was not even noticed until after it had passed earth's orbit.
As a Kiloton-Megaton explosion of "unknown" origin, reaction may be faster than identification.
The possibility of a reactive nuclear strike remains high in such an instance.
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