asteroids

http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/lin...asteroids.html
The chances of an asteroid colliding with Earth are very small! But
some do come close to Earth, like Hermes (closest approach of 777,000
km).


http://www.space.com/businesstechnol...on_030205.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...15/wsci215.xml
Asteroid heading to Earth? Please, just don't ask…
By David Derbyshire, Science Correspondent, in Denver
(Filed: 15/02/2003)

Any comment on the possibility of giant asteroids colliding with
earth? It'd be interesting to experience it.

"amanda" wrote in message
om...
http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/lin...asteroids.html
The chances of an asteroid colliding with Earth are very small! But
some do come close to Earth, like Hermes (closest approach of 777,000
km).



http://www.space.com/businesstechnol...on_030205.html


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...15/wsci215.xml
Asteroid heading to Earth? Please, just don't ask.
By David Derbyshire, Science Correspondent, in Denver
(Filed: 15/02/2003)

Any comment on the possibility of giant asteroids colliding with
earth? It'd be interesting to experience it.

Let's not forget the possibility of a comet hitting either.

Well it seems to me that some people have the erroneous idea that a low
probabiliy means that it won't happen. Nonsense. E.g. My uncle died horribly
from a disease called AML (a type of leukemia). My grandmother always told
me that I would get it if I didn't eat steak since her son never ate steak
and he got it (she obviously never took biology). While I grew up with that
fear I assumed that the odds of getting it were so small (~100,000 to one)
that I'd never have to worry about it. I.e. I would not get it. Wrong! So
when someone tells me that the chances of an asteroid hitting the Earth are
100,000 to one and we need not concern ourselves then I don't take them
seriously.

But it would definitely be cool to watch. But something like that has
already happend. In June 30, 1908 either an astroid or a comet hit Tunguska
Siberia and exploded with an energy release of about the equivalent of a 40
megaton nuclear warhead.

However these things hit the atmosphere all the time with the energy release
of a nulear bomb. The Airforce detects about 50 of them a year. There was
one a few years ago that lit up the night sky somewhere. The light was
caught on a video surveilence camera in a parking lot.

Pmb

In sci.physics, amanda

wrote
on 25 Jan 2004 23:52:59 -0800
:
http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/lin...asteroids.html
The chances of an asteroid colliding with Earth are very small! But
some do come close to Earth, like Hermes (closest approach of 777,000
km).


http://www.space.com/businesstechnol...on_030205.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...15/wsci215.xml
Asteroid heading to Earth? Please, just don't ask…
By David Derbyshire, Science Correspondent, in Denver
(Filed: 15/02/2003)

Any comment on the possibility of giant asteroids colliding with
earth? It'd be interesting to experience it.

"Interesting" is one way of putting it. "Completely lethal"
might be another, depending on the size of the asteroid.

Let's just hope we don't find out the hard way... :-)

--
#191,
It's still legal to go .sigless.

(amanda) wrote in message . com...
http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/lin...asteroids.html
The chances of an asteroid colliding with Earth are very small! But
some do come close to Earth, like Hermes (closest approach of 777,000
km).


http://www.space.com/businesstechnol...on_030205.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...15/wsci215.xml
Asteroid heading to Earth? Please, just don't ask?
By David Derbyshire, Science Correspondent, in Denver
(Filed: 15/02/2003)

Any comment on the possibility of giant asteroids colliding with
earth? It'd be interesting to experience it.

Interesting. The above article suggests the government might not
release such information to the public to avoid panic. I don't think
there would be panic. Most people would stop with the petty stuff.
When World Trade Center was attacked, although not an extinction
event, it scared the crap outta lots of us who saw and lived with the
event. I noticed people were suddenly less rude. No signs of the
usual road rage. Everyone slowed down a bit and came together in
subtle ways that you could actually feel in crowds.

With an extinction event, such as an asteroid on a collision course
with the earth, I think the people of the world would come together.
And for a few days or weeks we would experience an incredible peace.

"If I were to discover that a monster rock was coming towards us and
it could be an extinction event, common sense tells me that I want to
know now. It's not up to any bureaucrat or policy maker to keep that
from me. I might want to make peace with my god." David Derbyshire,
Science Correspondent, Denver

A good plot for a book: world scientists make up a story that an
asteroid will strike earth in 3 months to bring world peace... how
would the story end?

"Pmb" wrote in message
...

Well it seems to me that some people have the erroneous idea that a low
probabiliy means that it won't happen. Nonsense. E.g. My uncle died
horribly
from a disease called AML (a type of leukemia). My grandmother always told
me that I would get it if I didn't eat steak since her son never ate steak
and he got it (she obviously never took biology). While I grew up with
that
fear I assumed that the odds of getting it were so small (~100,000 to one)
that I'd never have to worry about it. I.e. I would not get it. Wrong! So
when someone tells me that the chances of an asteroid hitting the Earth
are
100,000 to one and we need not concern ourselves then I don't take them
seriously.

But did you eat the steak?

amanda wrote:

http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/lin...asteroids.html
The chances of an asteroid colliding with Earth are very small! But
some do come close to Earth, like Hermes (closest approach of 777,000
km).

http://www.space.com/businesstechnol...on_030205.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...15/wsci215.xml
Asteroid heading to Earth? Please, just don't ask…
By David Derbyshire, Science Correspondent, in Denver
(Filed: 15/02/2003)

Any comment on the possibility of giant asteroids colliding with
earth? It'd be interesting to experience it.

All intersecting orbits have been swept clean over 5 billion years.
That leaves

1) Chaos in existing orbits from cumulative multiple gravitational
interactions, body outgassing, light pressure, and solar wind to toss
a ringer,

2) *Very* long period orbits of large bodies that very infrequently
raise Hell with the inner solar system,

3) Unpredictable outside gravitational influence to destabilize
Oort cloud and Kuiper belt objects (wandering rogue brown dwarf stars
or super-Jovian planets ejected from other star systems).

The Earth intersects a whole lot of solar orbital junk every day. The
only large-scale how-de-do in 5000 years of recorded history was
Tungsuka. Don't sweat the big stuff. Sky Watch is interesting to ID
a small primordial object that could be snagged and brought to Earth
for study. The only prime contractor worse than NASA would be the
European Space Agency.

Fine. A lump the size of Texas is coming straight in at our noses
humping 40 miles/second when it hits. You can pick a solid stone or
metal body or a slightly consolidated collection of dust to
mountains. Whatcha gonna do, Bunky? Fragmenting it (ha ha ha - no
imaginable bomb is big enough) turns a bullet into a shotgun blast.
Changing its orbit an RCH early on is the way to go. What will you
use to get there in time? How will you match velocities? How will
you apply enough thrust to change its orbital parameters enough?

If the Earth gets splattered it will hurt a whole bunch and go on for
a long, long time. The only reasonable remedy is to have developed a
radically new and more inclusive physics to deal with physical reality
on a much larger, more energetic scale. Stop funding studies of the
Etruscan Half-Blind Walking Fly and Project Head Start. Start pouring
money into the Gifted instead of the corrupt, crippled, and Officially
Sad.

How much of Sky Watch is devoted to intersections with the moon? That
would give the Earth a first class shot upside the head, too -
collision debris de-orbiting, wiping out geosynchronous communication
satellites and low Earth orbit GPS satellites.

--
Uncle Al
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/
(Toxic URL! Unsafe for children and most mammals)
"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" The Net!

(Bob Carlson) wrote in message . com...
(amanda) wrote in message . com...
http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/lin...asteroids.html
The chances of an asteroid colliding with Earth are very small! But
some do come close to Earth, like Hermes (closest approach of 777,000
km).


http://www.space.com/businesstechnol...on_030205.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...15/wsci215.xml
Asteroid heading to Earth? Please, just don't ask?
By David Derbyshire, Science Correspondent, in Denver
(Filed: 15/02/2003)

Any comment on the possibility of giant asteroids colliding with
earth? It'd be interesting to experience it.

Interesting. The above article suggests the government might not
release such information to the public to avoid panic. I don't think
there would be panic. Most people would stop with the petty stuff.

That's what I want to find out: whether people will stop with petty
stuff especially if government makes plan to save a few people (and
animals) in some caves with supplies to last many years and then to
start over.

When World Trade Center was attacked, although not an extinction
event, it scared the crap outta lots of us who saw and lived with the
event. I noticed people were suddenly less rude. No signs of the
usual road rage. Everyone slowed down a bit and came together in
subtle ways that you could actually feel in crowds.

With an extinction event, such as an asteroid on a collision course
with the earth, I think the people of the world would come together.
And for a few days or weeks we would experience an incredible peace.

"If I were to discover that a monster rock was coming towards us and
it could be an extinction event, common sense tells me that I want to
know now. It's not up to any bureaucrat or policy maker to keep that
from me. I might want to make peace with my god." David Derbyshire,
Science Correspondent, Denver

A good plot for a book: world scientists make up a story that an
asteroid will strike earth in 3 months to bring world peace... how
would the story end?

I wonder what Bill Gate will do. Will he give away his software free
for a change?


A while back (it's been a while), I read an asrticle where a
scientists says that they didn't really have enough information on how
many were out there, how big they were, and and whether they were
heading towards the earth. Would anyone agree with that statement?

The Ghost In The Machine wrote in message ...
In sci.physics, amanda

wrote
on 25 Jan 2004 23:52:59 -0800
:
http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/lin...asteroids.html
The chances of an asteroid colliding with Earth are very small! But
some do come close to Earth, like Hermes (closest approach of 777,000
km).


http://www.space.com/businesstechnol...on_030205.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...15/wsci215.xml
Asteroid heading to Earth? Please, just don't ask?
By David Derbyshire, Science Correspondent, in Denver
(Filed: 15/02/2003)

Any comment on the possibility of giant asteroids colliding with
earth? It'd be interesting to experience it.

"Interesting" is one way of putting it. "Completely lethal"
might be another, depending on the size of the asteroid.

Let's just hope we don't find out the hard way... :-)


Where would be the fun if isn't a lethal one?

I mean, do we have the technology to do something about it, say to
deflect the direction of these things or just send some ships to blow
it up, etc.

"Pmb" wrote in message ...
"amanda" wrote in message
om...
http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/lin...asteroids.html
The chances of an asteroid colliding with Earth are very small! But
some do come close to Earth, like Hermes (closest approach of 777,000
km).



http://www.space.com/businesstechnol...on_030205.html


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...15/wsci215.xml
Asteroid heading to Earth? Please, just don't ask.
By David Derbyshire, Science Correspondent, in Denver
(Filed: 15/02/2003)

Any comment on the possibility of giant asteroids colliding with
earth? It'd be interesting to experience it.

Let's not forget the possibility of a comet hitting either.

Well it seems to me that some people have the erroneous idea that a low
probabiliy means that it won't happen. Nonsense. E.g. My uncle died horribly
from a disease called AML (a type of leukemia). My grandmother always told
me that I would get it if I didn't eat steak since her son never ate steak
and he got it (she obviously never took biology). While I grew up with that
fear I assumed that the odds of getting it were so small (~100,000 to one)
that I'd never have to worry about it. I.e. I would not get it. Wrong! So
when someone tells me that the chances of an asteroid hitting the Earth are
100,000 to one and we need not concern ourselves then I don't take them
seriously.

But it would definitely be cool to watch. But something like that has
already happend. In June 30, 1908 either an astroid or a comet hit Tunguska
Siberia and exploded with an energy release of about the equivalent of a 40
megaton nuclear warhead.

However these things hit the atmosphere all the time with the energy release
of a nulear bomb. The Airforce detects about 50 of them a year.

There was
one a few years ago that lit up the night sky somewhere. The light was
caught on a video surveilence camera in a parking lot.

When I was young, in summer time, we would go up to the, let say
*balcony* of the house (I don't know the right term) and count the
stars. One time I saw a *star* (very small and shiny looking thing and
hence a star to me) falling down. The speed must be very high the way
it was falling. I wonder what that was and where it went.




Pmb

"Richard Henry" wrote in message news:zCaRb.169$fD.84@fed1read02...
"Pmb" wrote in message
...

Well it seems to me that some people have the erroneous idea that a low
probabiliy means that it won't happen. Nonsense. E.g. My uncle died
horribly
from a disease called AML (a type of leukemia). My grandmother always told
me that I would get it if I didn't eat steak since her son never ate steak
and he got it (she obviously never took biology). While I grew up with
that
fear I assumed that the odds of getting it were so small (~100,000 to one)
that I'd never have to worry about it. I.e. I would not get it. Wrong! So
when someone tells me that the chances of an asteroid hitting the Earth
are
100,000 to one and we need not concern ourselves then I don't take them
seriously.

But did you eat the steak?

I didn't like steak until I was in my 30's. Turns out that my
grandmother and parents always bought the cheaper cut and cooked it
until it was like leather. After growing up with it like that I
wouldn't touch it after. I wasn't until I was in my 30's when I
realized that I liked a good cut and very rare.