[GeraldP]

Makes you think about crying "wolf!" too soon.

[GSWarrior]

Hot Fudge Tuesday!

[TADSLOS]

If... the call had been made to the president it would have been disastrous

Why? Because it would have been Bush's fault and three times as lethal if he was informed. /sarc/

[staytrue]

about 500m wide

About 1/15 the width of the one that killed the dinosaurs. Still too large and too close for comfort.

[boomop1]

Wait until the Passion Starts the impact is going to be worse then that, the president may have to make a speach.

[Timesink]

Where is the mailing list where such discussions take place? If amateur astronomers can be on it, we can lurk too. Might be fun!

[BrooklynGOP]

What did Bush know and when did he know it?

[Mr. K]

That is the main problem detecting one that is going to hit us. If it is moving across the pictures than it's trajectory is somewhere else, but if it is coming right towards us it does not move- we can only tell it is coming by it growing brighter.

If one hits us I doubt we will have much more than a few days notice no matter what.

[RightWhale]

32 times the Earth-Moon distance

That is a 25% chance? Looks like closer to 1 in a million.

[Williams]

Further, I don't think a warning would have brought ridicule on astronomers. It would have focused us on potential danger. People would have been relieved the danger passed. I think we have become stupid shallow and childish to a degree that endangers us. Some realities, like a piece of space rock wiping us out, do not yield to our emotional, political whims.

[thoughtomator]

Gee, why call the US President? Clearly, it's a global problem, so we need a multilateral approach. I say dump it in Kofi Annan's lap.

[CathyRyan]

close to....Oh Shit!

[GeraldP]

Obligatory "Space Art":

[hchutch]

Time to start dusting off Project Icarus again?

[Godzilla]

If they want to get serious about it, I'd recommend a system similar to what the weather service uses: Advisory, Watch, and Warning. They could have issued an Advisory while they were in the process of collecting the confirmatory data. The Watch or Warning would be based upon the evaluation of the data and proximity to the estimated impact time.

[PBRSTREETGANG]

More importantly, were Ben Afleck and Bruce Willis placed on notice so they could save us?

[2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten]

One effect of something like this could be a nuclear nation (India, Pakistan, U.S., U.S.S.R. etc.) mistaking the space rock for a weapon launched by an adversary and retaliating accordingly.

[2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten]

One effect of something like this could be a nuclear nation (India, Pakistan, U.S., U.S.S.R. etc.) mistaking the space rock for a weapon launched by an adversary and retaliating accordingly.

[GeraldP]

Scientific American had an interesting article titled "Asteroid Tugboat" a couple of months ago. I wonder if anyone has a copy of it?

[willgolfforfood]

I think the space rock that made the impact crater in Arizona (approx. 1 mile diameter) was estimated to be only 50 feet across. About 1/2 the size of this one.

FYI...

[PsyOp]

API Berkely - Upon hearing the news of near miss by a "big space rock", representative Zynthia McKinney demanded to know what Bush Knew and when he knew it. Kerry blames the lack of credible information on the CIA and says that if he were president would have done something about this problem much sooner. Howard dean was unavailable for comment due to "primal scream" practice.