Is it me or is the whole Deep Impact project weird? Is NASA not telling us something?
What if the comet is REALLY hurling toward Earth?
What if the comet is REALLY hurling toward Earth?
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Wouldn't that be intriguing and more than a little frightening? But that scenario would be fiction, comet Tempel 1's orbit is a known quantity and poses no danger to Earth.
Freaky?
Nah it's not freaky. I remember seeing something on this a few months ago - someone posed a query on whether they'd want the gov't to tell 'em.
I don't think the gov't would to be honest. They'd hold off until the last minute to avoid the anarchy that'd erupt out of the opportunists.
"Ah, an asteroid's gonna blast the earth and kill us all - who cares what happens if I break as many laws as I can."
Anyhow... I don't know that its all that freaky they're doing this experiment... good idear truthfully. The odds are against us on not being hit by an object from space large enough to really wallop the planet.
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Nah it's not freaky. I remember seeing something on this a few months ago - someone posed a query on whether they'd want the gov't to tell 'em.
I don't think the gov't would to be honest. They'd hold off until the last minute to avoid the anarchy that'd erupt out of the opportunists.
"Ah, an asteroid's gonna blast the earth and kill us all - who cares what happens if I break as many laws as I can."
Anyhow... I don't know that its all that freaky they're doing this experiment... good idear truthfully. The odds are against us on not being hit by an object from space large enough to really wallop the planet.
my 2 c
B/ND
Comet
I wouldn't worry about it. We're bound to get smacked sooner or later, but not this time around. The government might cover up a comet or asteroid impact if they could, but the truth is they can't. Especially not a comet. Comets are very easy to see, and there are thousands of telescopes looking at them all the time.
Deep Impact is something we've wanted to do for a very long time, and now we have the chance. It will make it easier to deal with a comet that may head our way in the future.
Now, there is a 1,300 foot wide asteroid headed our way that does stand a chance of striking. It's threat level has been raised to 4, and the highest we've ever had before this was a 1. Right now it looks like it will miss us by about 20,000 miles, that's closer than many of our satellites, but it's still way too early to tell, and it isn't due to arrive until 2029.
Anthing much smaller than hit may strike without warning, but if it's big enough to do world-wide damage, the government won't have a choice about letting us know it's coming because there are far too many people outside the government who are watching.
maestrowork said:
I wouldn't worry about it. We're bound to get smacked sooner or later, but not this time around. The government might cover up a comet or asteroid impact if they could, but the truth is they can't. Especially not a comet. Comets are very easy to see, and there are thousands of telescopes looking at them all the time.
Deep Impact is something we've wanted to do for a very long time, and now we have the chance. It will make it easier to deal with a comet that may head our way in the future.
Now, there is a 1,300 foot wide asteroid headed our way that does stand a chance of striking. It's threat level has been raised to 4, and the highest we've ever had before this was a 1. Right now it looks like it will miss us by about 20,000 miles, that's closer than many of our satellites, but it's still way too early to tell, and it isn't due to arrive until 2029.
Anthing much smaller than hit may strike without warning, but if it's big enough to do world-wide damage, the government won't have a choice about letting us know it's coming because there are far too many people outside the government who are watching.
by 2029 i'll have quit smoking and will probably have died by second-hand smoke, because, you know, it's impossible to get lung cancer any other way. that's my plan. no worries. now, if they release the cure to cancer they've got, i'm screwed. and that would just be my dumb luck.
Not impossible, just that smoking is the most common way. But if some big 'ol asteroid was about to smack us, I'd be getting you to light me up a nice fat stogie, and an even bigger reefer.
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2029 -- I would be pretty old. I think if I'm not already dead, I'd pick the best seat in town and watch the show. I think it'd be an event of my pitiful little life to see a ELE in progress.
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Actually, Asteroid 1950DA is on a collision course with Earth and will strike In Feb of 2880. It is considered a dinosaur (or in our case Human) killer.
Just in 2005, there have been 10 asteroids that missed us by less than 20% the distance from the Earth to the sun, the closest being just 5/100 the distance between the Earth and the sun.
Look at the moon and all it's craters and that will give you an idea of how frequent impacts are. The moon however doesn't have any erosion or water to cover up the evidence.
Think of Earth's orbit as a highway with infinite number of cross streets. Asteroids, comets, meteors and such cross through our orbit all the time. The trick is one crossing our street at the very moment we are there.
It is estimated that we are behind schedule of a major impact by 10,000 years. The last MINOR one in the 1920's devastated a big chuck of the Siberian forest and if it hit a populated city area in the US it would have killed 1,000,000 plus.
Just a matter of time and luck.
PS. On a side note the one thing that will hit us and destroy not just earth but the whole Milky way is another galaxy. Andromeda is moving towards us at a staggering speed and will collide with our own Galaxy in a few short billion years. We won't be around though because our dying Sun would have already burnt us to a crisp. That is if the moon doesn't kill us first. It is moving away from us a few inches a year and eventually brake away from orbit and cause us further slowing down and global disasters. Another interesting fact is the Tsunami we just had has caused the Earth to wobble 2/100 of a degree further and slowed down the Earth's rotation by a few miliseconds each year. Another is the magnetic poles are in the process of flipping, where south becomes north and north becomes south. This will have global technology failure that wil last for weeks, maybe months.
If it's not one thing...
Just in 2005, there have been 10 asteroids that missed us by less than 20% the distance from the Earth to the sun, the closest being just 5/100 the distance between the Earth and the sun.
Look at the moon and all it's craters and that will give you an idea of how frequent impacts are. The moon however doesn't have any erosion or water to cover up the evidence.
Think of Earth's orbit as a highway with infinite number of cross streets. Asteroids, comets, meteors and such cross through our orbit all the time. The trick is one crossing our street at the very moment we are there.
It is estimated that we are behind schedule of a major impact by 10,000 years. The last MINOR one in the 1920's devastated a big chuck of the Siberian forest and if it hit a populated city area in the US it would have killed 1,000,000 plus.
Just a matter of time and luck.
PS. On a side note the one thing that will hit us and destroy not just earth but the whole Milky way is another galaxy. Andromeda is moving towards us at a staggering speed and will collide with our own Galaxy in a few short billion years. We won't be around though because our dying Sun would have already burnt us to a crisp. That is if the moon doesn't kill us first. It is moving away from us a few inches a year and eventually brake away from orbit and cause us further slowing down and global disasters. Another interesting fact is the Tsunami we just had has caused the Earth to wobble 2/100 of a degree further and slowed down the Earth's rotation by a few miliseconds each year. Another is the magnetic poles are in the process of flipping, where south becomes north and north becomes south. This will have global technology failure that wil last for weeks, maybe months.
If it's not one thing...
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Our own galaxy is slowly swallowed by by the black hole in its center anyway. .. just a matter of time. Then a new galaxy will form, and the cycle continues...
Fascinating stuff. We won't live to see any of these happening.
Fascinating stuff. We won't live to see any of these happening.
That 2880 asteroid Joe mentioned is probably the nearest civilization killer we have to worry about the universe throwing at us. I like to ponder the certainty that the sun will expand to beyond our orbit at some point before it dies and whatever charcoal briquette remains behind freezes at absolute zero after the sun collapses in on itself. Fortunately (talk about a relative situation) our sun doesn't have the mass to go nova and vaporize the entire solar system. Try getting out of the way of any of those situations if we haven't figured out how to colonize other worlds yet. Mind you, we'd have to evolve into something that could withstand temperatures that would boil lead long before the sun's surface got anywhere near our orbit....
Pass me that reefer, Preyer.
Pass me that reefer, Preyer.
joecalabre said:
I think there's now only a 20% of Asteroid 1950DA striking. We just can't plot orbits that accurately. Each time the orbit is checked, they get a different number.
My worry is that only 10% of earth-crossing asteroids have been detected.
There was an asteroid/comet explosion in the upper atmosphere in the 90's that was roughly the same size as a Hirohima atomic bomb, but it barely even made the news because it explode over a remote section of the south pacific and caused no damage.
The pole flop worries me as much as an asteroid impact. Super calderas worry me even more. It's though that 90% of the human population on earth was wiped out by a super caldera roughly 65,000 years ago.
There are an awful lot of things that could happen, and happen fast. This is why it bothers me when people talk about wasting money on space travel. We're living in a condemned building. We just don't know exactly when the wrecker ball will start swinging. Seems to me we'd better start looking for another place to live before that happens.
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"Super calderas."
Yellowstone National Park is the largest one in the world and when it blows (already late by a few thousand years) it will wipe out an area the size of Texas and destroy all our crops with ash across the entire midwest. USA will become a thrid world nation.
Next time you look at old faithful, remember it's more than a cute blast of hot water..
OH. and this is interesting from a few weeks ago.
Last Friday at NASA headquarters, astronomers met to discuss the brightest explosion ever detected in our galaxy: a 0.2-second flash that packed as much punch as our sun produces in 200,000 years. The incredible flash was so bright that it knocked satellites' instruments out of whack and interfered with low-frequency radio waves on Earth.
The blast came from a rare entity called a magnetar roughly halfway across the Milky Way--50,000 light years from Earth. That may sound a long way off, but as one astrophysicist pointed out, "Astronomically speaking, this explosion happened in our backyard." If it had happened just 10,000 light years away, it might have blown away the ozone layer.
Thankfully, the nearest known magnetar is 13,000 light years from here.
Yellowstone National Park is the largest one in the world and when it blows (already late by a few thousand years) it will wipe out an area the size of Texas and destroy all our crops with ash across the entire midwest. USA will become a thrid world nation.
Next time you look at old faithful, remember it's more than a cute blast of hot water..
OH. and this is interesting from a few weeks ago.
Last Friday at NASA headquarters, astronomers met to discuss the brightest explosion ever detected in our galaxy: a 0.2-second flash that packed as much punch as our sun produces in 200,000 years. The incredible flash was so bright that it knocked satellites' instruments out of whack and interfered with low-frequency radio waves on Earth.
The blast came from a rare entity called a magnetar roughly halfway across the Milky Way--50,000 light years from Earth. That may sound a long way off, but as one astrophysicist pointed out, "Astronomically speaking, this explosion happened in our backyard." If it had happened just 10,000 light years away, it might have blown away the ozone layer.
Thankfully, the nearest known magnetar is 13,000 light years from here.
Um, Joe, can you pin down that February date just a bit more? I'm trying to schedule my appointments for that month. 
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Then, it will be late? St. Pat's day is in March...or it has been since its inception. Trust the universe to never keep its appointments.
But, it does sound like a damned good reason to buy a case of Irish whiskey.
But, it does sound like a damned good reason to buy a case of Irish whiskey.
This thread has reminded me that it has been a long time since I've re-read Lucifer's Hammer by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle. Great book.
Not familiar with little wolf's, preyer. But if it's a good place from which to watch the end of the world, save me a seat.
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I wanna spot in the Restaurant at the End of the Universe!
Gimme another Pan-galactic Gargle Blaster!
Gimme another Pan-galactic Gargle Blaster!
Found this NASA article about the magnetar discovered in 1979:
http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/ast20may98_1.htm
I found it interesting - it explains the science behind what Joe was talking about.
WVWG
http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/ast20may98_1.htm
I found it interesting - it explains the science behind what Joe was talking about.
WVWG
NASA
Be warned about the NASA wbsite. You can get lost in there for months, and be a pale shadow of your former self before you emerge.
WVWriterGirl said:
Be warned about the NASA wbsite. You can get lost in there for months, and be a pale shadow of your former self before you emerge.
Yep, learned that the hard way the other night, James. Although, I did come away with several new ideas for stories...
Hmmmm.....
WVWG
Hmmmm.....
WVWG
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