"Missed me by that much"

"Richard Lamb" wrote in message
...

26,000 miles?

Less than 3 Earth diameters?

First noticed, excuse me, Monday?


Why did the hair stand up on the back of my neck?

Hah... it's probably already happened dozens of times in your lifetime.
This asteroid was much smaller than the ones they typically search for, and
would have burned up in the atmosphere had it hit Earth.

"El Guapo" writes:

"Richard Lamb" wrote in message
...

26,000 miles?

Less than 3 Earth diameters?

First noticed, excuse me, Monday?

Why did the hair stand up on the back of my neck?

Hah... it's probably already happened dozens of times in your lifetime.
This asteroid was much smaller than the ones they typically search for,
and would have burned up in the atmosphere had it hit Earth.

....And even if it _had_ reached the ground, given the data on this object
provided at http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news142.html, its impact energy
would have only been about 800 kilotons: Enough to mess up a city rather badly,
but by no means a "Civilization Killer," let alone a "Mass Extinctioner"...


-- Gordon D. Pusch

perl -e '$_ = \n"; s/NO\.//; s/SPAM\.//; print;'

"Gordon D. Pusch" wrote:

"El Guapo" writes:

"Richard Lamb" wrote in message
...

26,000 miles?

Less than 3 Earth diameters?

First noticed, excuse me, Monday?

Why did the hair stand up on the back of my neck?


(clipped)

...And even if it _had_ reached the ground, given the data on this object
provided at http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news142.html, its impact energy
would have only been about 800 kilotons: Enough to mess up a city rather badly,
but by no means a "Civilization Killer," let alone a "Mass Extinctioner"...

-- Gordon D. Pusch

perl -e '$_ = \n"; s/NO\.//; s/SPAM\.//; print;'

Thank you, Gordon.

I guess hijacking this thread might have implied such,
but no, I didn't think a 100 foot rock could be that dangerous.

At least not at such (relatively) low speed, anyway.

I'm assuming that this particular rock is at it's lowest speed?

And I don't have a clue as to how much of it would have burned
off in the atmosphere before impact. Seems like it would depend
a lot on the particular path taken.

From the diagrams on the NEO site, it looks like it will be by again
soon on the way back in.

I'm guessing - what - 6 to 8 weeks?



Richard