It's high time that we get on our high horses and high tail it outta Dodge! Or we could borrow a page from Dr O'Neil's High Frontier and build a mass driver, land it on the asteroid and deflect its orbit. We could direct it to a LaGrange Point and mine it for the minerals or organics that it might contain AND it might give us reason to look starward rather than at each other in anger!
To: Young Werther
Back in 78 I had a Torino with a hazard rating of 1...
2 posted on
09/02/2003 3:29:30 PM PDT by
BeerSwillr
(NO to Prop 12)
To: Young Werther
3 posted on
09/02/2003 3:32:55 PM PDT by
Eala
(There is, however, a limit at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue. --Burke)
To: Young Werther
Torino hazard rating of 1, defined as "an event meriting careful monitoring". The newly discovered 1.2 km wide asteroid, known to scientists as 2003 QQ47, has a mass of around 2 600 billion kg, and would deliver around 350 000 MT of energy in an impact with Earth.
This is IMO the understatment of the day.
4 posted on
09/02/2003 3:34:56 PM PDT by
Valin
(America is a vast conspiracy to make you happy.)
To: Young Werther
This Page Last Updated Mar 12, 2002 |
THE TORINO IMPACT HAZARD SCALE |
Assessing Asteroid And Comet Impact Hazard Predictions In The 21st Century |
Events Having No Likely Consequences (White Zone) |
0
|
The likelihood of a collision is zero, or well below the chance that a random object of the same size will strike the Earth within the next few decades. This designation also applies to any small object that, in the event of a collision, is unlikely to reach the Earth's surface intact. |
Events Meriting Careful Monitoring (Green Zone) |
1
|
The chance of collision is extremely unlikely, about the same as a random object of the same size striking the Earth within the next few decades. |
Events Meriting Concern (Yellow Zone) |
2
|
A somewhat close, but not unusual encounter. Collision is very unlikely. |
3
|
A close encounter, with 1% or greater chance of a collision capable of causing localized destruction. |
4
|
A close encounter, with 1% or greater chance of a collision capable of causing regional devastation. |
Threatening Events (Orange Zone) |
5
|
A close encounter, with a significant threat of a collision capable of causing regional devastation. |
6
|
A close encounter, with a significant threat of a collision capable of causing a global catastrophe. |
7
|
A close encounter, with an extremely significant threat of a collision capable of causing a global catastrophe. |
Certain Collisions (Red Zone) |
8
|
A collision capable of causing localized destruction. Such events occur somewhere on Earth between once per 50 years and once per 1000 years. |
9
|
A collision capable of causing regional devastation. Such events occur between once per 1000 years and once per 100,000 years. |
10
|
A collision capable of causing a global climatic catastrophe. Such events occur once per 100,000 years, or less often. |
|
Ron Baalke, Near-Earth Object Webmaster
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Pasadena, California
5 posted on
09/02/2003 3:36:44 PM PDT by
So Cal Rocket
(Free Miguel, Priscilla and Bill!)
To: Young Werther
RightWhale favors capturing this asteroid for later use.
6 posted on
09/02/2003 3:38:21 PM PDT by
RightWhale
(Repeal the Law of the Excluded Middle)
To: Young Werther
8 posted on
09/02/2003 3:45:49 PM PDT by
Polycarp
(When a mother can kill her own child, what is left of the West to save?" - Mother Theresa)
To: Young Werther
See what happens when we elect a GOP President and GOP Congress???
13 posted on
09/02/2003 3:59:36 PM PDT by
Guillermo
(Proud Infidel)
To: Young Werther
16 posted on
09/02/2003 4:09:46 PM PDT by
blam
To: Young Werther
...we could borrow a page from Dr O'Neil's High Frontier and build a mass driver, land it on the asteroid and deflect its orbit. We could direct it to a LaGrange Point and mine it for the minerals or organics that it might contain...
We could nudge it toward Mecca at the height of party season.
To: Young Werther
Starsky had a Torino rating of One.
18 posted on
09/02/2003 4:15:47 PM PDT by
IncPen
To: Young Werther
Moses Comet Mike Baillie
Discovering Archeology, July/August 1999
Moses called down a host of calamities upon Egypt until the pharaoh finally freed the Israelites. Perhaps he had the help of a comet impact coupled with a volcano. A volcano destroyed the island of Santorini in the Aegean Sea (between today's Greece and Turkey) around the middle of the second millennium B.C. Researchers Val LaMarche and Kathy Hirschboeck suggest the volcano might be associated with tree-ring evidence for several years of intense cold beginning in 1627 B.C. Could that form the basis for strange meteorological phenomena recorded in the biblical book of Exodus?
In the book of Exodus, which describes events a few hundred kilometers from Santorini, we read of a pillar of cloud and fire, a lingering darkness, and the parting of the Red Sea. An enormous column of ash must have hung in the sky over the eruption (the Israelites pillar of cloud by day and fire by night?), and the volcano doubtless caused a tsunami, or tidal wave (which could have drowned a pharaoh's army). The Exodus story is traditionally dated to either the thirteenth or fifteenth century B.C. Those dates, however, depend ultimately on identifying the Pharaoh of the Oppression, and historians have never proven to which ruler that infamous title referred. Many biblical scholars will disagree, but I suggest that a seventeenth-century B.C. date is not impossible.
The argument can be bolstered. Equally catastrophic meteorological conditions are recorded in the Bible for the time of King David. Psalm 18, in reference to David, speaks of terrifying events: Earth shook and trembled. The foundations of the hills moved and were shaken. ... Smoke ... fire ... darkness ... dark waters ... thick clouds of the skies ... hailstones and coals of fire. On some chronologies, David is placed 470 years after the Exodus. The spacing between the two disastrous events recorded in Irish tree rings at 1628 and 1159 B.C. is 469 years. The Exodus story includes dust, several days of darkness, hail, dead fish, undrinkable water, cattle killed by hail, water breaking out of rocks, the earth opening, the sea parting as in a tsunami, and so on. Someone looking at the Exodus story and knowing descriptions of other distant volcanic effects might offer the possibility that the Israelites escaped from Egypt under the cover of a major natural catastrophe. There may be veiled references to comets in the biblical narrative, leading to the possibility that the Santorini eruption itself may have been triggered by a bolide (comet or asteroid) impact. David Levy, co-discoverer of the comet that bears his and Jean Shoemaker's names, has argued that the description of the angel of the Lord in the sky over Jerusalem with a drawn sword (1 Chronicles 21) could be a reference to a comet. The Angel of the Lord was, of course, also present at the Exodus, as it was traveling in front of Israel's army. Further, there are indications that as the Israelites left Egypt, the night was as bright as midday. The nights over Europe were reported to have been daytime-bright after the only known modern bolide impact, the Tunguska explosion over Siberia in 1908.
These stories raise the question of whether comets recorded by the Chinese at the start and end of the Shang Dynasty, at very near the same dates, were the same as the comets that may be recorded in the Old Testament. I believe that we know the answer: In the last five millennia, several dynastic changes and dark ages have been the direct result of impacts and/or volcanoes. The consequences of such events must have been devastating, leading to apocalyptic imagery in religious writing and predictions of the end of the world. Zachariah of Mitylene lived through the environmental disaster that began about 540 A.D. In the mid-550s, he wrote in his twelve-volume records of the trials the world had survived: In addition to all the fearful things described above, the earthquakes and famines and wars, ... there has also been fulfilled against us the curse of Moses in Deuteronomy." The curse included pestilence, consumption, fever, fiery blasts from the skies, mildew, a rain of powder and dust, and darkness. The curse of Moses must have seemed an appropriate description of life after the impact of a piece of a comet.
19 posted on
09/02/2003 4:19:15 PM PDT by
blam
To: Young Werther
But the big question is what did Bush know about the asteroid and when did he know it.
And of course women and minorities to suffer most.
20 posted on
09/02/2003 5:24:07 PM PDT by
Gringo1
(Handsome...and now with springtime fresh lemon scent.)
To: Young Werther
Time for me to purchase one of those abandoned missle silos and stock up on food, water and ammo.
21 posted on
09/02/2003 5:30:40 PM PDT by
SVTCobra03
(You can never have enough friends, horsepower or ammunition.)
To: Young Werther
24 posted on
09/02/2003 6:52:12 PM PDT by
Valin
(America is a vast conspiracy to make you happy.)
To: Young Werther
"...would deliver around 350 000 MT of energy in an impact with Earth."
Like a HIllary fart!
25 posted on
09/02/2003 7:22:50 PM PDT by
lawdude
(Liberalism: A failure every time it is tried!)
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