mansoor1980
Member
finally , humanity shall be set free
Last edited:
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
NASA scientists are studying a massive asteroid hurling towards Earth
- Thread starter mansoor1980
- Start date
finally , humanity shall be set free
FunkMiller
Member
Not sure 5.6 million kilometres away at it's closest quite qualifies as 'hurtling towards Earth' to be fair.
Last edited:
ManaByte
Gold Member
NASA has had every near-Earth asteroid mapped and cataloged for about 20 years at this point. Armageddon could never be made today because Billy Bob's joke about it being a "big ass sky" doesn't work anymore. But a lot of these "journalists" were kids in the late 90s when those dueling asteroid movies came out, they don't know about NASA's near-Earth tracking (they even have a website where you can look up every close approach with date), and fear headlines drive the clicks.
NEO Earth Close Approaches
NASA's Near-Earth Object (NEO) web-site. Data related to Earth impact risk, close-approaches, and much more.
cneos.jpl.nasa.gov
MujkicHaris
Member
Unfortunately the asteroid won't stop The Veilguard launch. So it's useless.
Last edited:
E-Cat
Member
You can’t account for rogue comets and meteoroids that aren’t orbiting the Solar System, though.NASA has had every near-Earth asteroid mapped and cataloged for about 20 years at this point. Armageddon could never be made today because Billy Bob's joke about it being a "big ass sky" doesn't work anymore. But a lot of these "journalists" were kids in the late 90s when those dueling asteroid movies came out, they don't know about NASA's near-Earth tracking (they even have a website where you can look up every close approach with date), and fear headlines drive the clicks.
NEO Earth Close Approaches
NASA's Near-Earth Object (NEO) web-site. Data related to Earth impact risk, close-approaches, and much more.
Wandering Leopard
Member
Why did they have to name it Apophis! They're trying to guarantee our destruction.
ManaByte
Gold Member
They aren't flying at warp speed towards Earth. Any "rogue" object that enters the solar system would be tracked long before it was a danger.
West Texas CEO
GAF's Nicest Lunch Thief and Nosiest Dildo Archeologist
Are the Klendathu responsible?
E-Cat
Member
I don’t think objects below a certain size that are coming ”from the dark” can be traced. It’s certainly not a 100% coverage.
They aren't flying at warp speed towards Earth. Any "rogue" object that enters the solar system would be tracked long before it was a danger.
Last edited:
ManaByte
Gold Member
Nitty_Grimes
Made a crappy phPBB forum once ... once.
Summoned by the Swifties to kill Dave Grohl no doubt.
Insane Metal
Member
Oh, Apophis has been observed and had its orbit calculated for years now. Nothing will happen but it'll be interesting to look at.
ManaByte
Gold Member
20 years.
Just wait, in 5 years (the original estimated impact date) the hysteria is going to hit Y2K and 2012 levels.
rm082e
Member
Mom's gonna fix it all soon
The issue here is, WHEN they do spot one (and we know its just a matter of time as we get hit with "A bad one" fairly often) and can't do anything about it, what exactly do they tell us? How well can they predict the actual impact spot? If we get another Tunguska impact, not enough to destroy the earth but enough to ABSOLUTELY FUCK any country it does hit, can they tell far enough out to allow for some evacuations? Or will it be a "any spot along these longitudes" mass panic? If China knows they are gonna eat a 1000km impact right in the middle of their eastern seaboard, what are they likely to do? Or Russia in the West? North Korea? Hell, the US?
They aren't flying at warp speed towards Earth. Any "rogue" object that enters the solar system would be tracked long before it was a danger.
E-Cat
Member
No.
bender
What time is it?
TintoConCasera
I bought a sex doll, but I keep it inflated 100% of the time and use it like a regular wife
Massive... and growing?
E-Cat
Member
- Between 1988 and 2020, over 1,200 asteroids bigger than a meter collided with the Earth, and of those, only five were detected before they hit, never with more than a day of warning.NASA has had every near-Earth asteroid mapped and cataloged for about 20 years at this point. Armageddon could never be made today because Billy Bob's joke about it being a "big ass sky" doesn't work anymore. But a lot of these "journalists" were kids in the late 90s when those dueling asteroid movies came out, they don't know about NASA's near-Earth tracking (they even have a website where you can look up every close approach with date), and fear headlines drive the clicks.
NEO Earth Close Approaches
NASA's Near-Earth Object (NEO) web-site. Data related to Earth impact risk, close-approaches, and much more.
- Asteroids are rough and dark, only reflecting around 15% of the light that hits them. Our best chance to see them is when they're fully illuminated by the Sun; and that's why over 85% of the near-Earth asteroids we've detected were found in the 45 degrees of sky directly opposite the sun. This is called the opposition effect, and it means there are likely more near-Earth and potentially hazardous asteroids that haven't been detected yet. Any asteroid approaching from the direction of the Sun cannot be seen. This is exactly what happened with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelyabinsk_meteor.
- So far, we have detected and catalogued ~a million asteroids, the vast majority of which are in the main asteroid belt. But 24,000 are near-Earth objects, and are hard to track, because if you just discover an object and have data from a few days, you can't really tell where it's gonna go because you only have a little arc of motion that you can't precisely predict far into the future. You need years and years of observation; but even if you have perfect observations of an asteroid, there's a fundamental limit to how far in the future you can predict. And that's because they're not just orbiting the Sun with no other influence, but are affected by the gravitational pull of all of the planets, too. This can change their orbit significantly. This is called dynamical chaos, which means that after a certain amount of time you don't know where the asteroid is gonna be. In practice, the maximum time you can predict with any accuracy at all is about 100 years.
- The chances that the Earth gets hit by a 10km+ asteroid in the next 100 years is zero, because we know there are no 10km+ impacters with a path that intersects the Earth.
- For every 10km asteroid, there are ~1,000 1km asteroids. A 1-2km asteroid is capable of wiping out a big European country. We think we have identified and know the orbits of maybe ~98% of those bodies.
- The greatest threat comes from asteroids that are a few hundred meters or smaller in size, because we haven't detected them all yet.
Last edited:
Movie is great. The JLaw, Jonah interactions alone are worth lol-ing about.
TheInfamousKira
Reseterror Resettler
Wheeljack539
Member
NASA has had every near-Earth asteroid mapped and cataloged for about 20 years at this point. Armageddon could never be made today because Billy Bob's joke about it being a "big ass sky" doesn't work anymore. But a lot of these "journalists" were kids in the late 90s when those dueling asteroid movies came out, they don't know about NASA's near-Earth tracking (they even have a website where you can look up every close approach with date), and fear headlines drive the clicks.
NEO Earth Close Approaches
NASA's Near-Earth Object (NEO) web-site. Data related to Earth impact risk, close-approaches, and much more.
I remember when those movies were about to come out the news had been playing reports about a "killer" asteroid that was due to hit/miss Earth in 2036. While no doubt extra marketing for the movies at the time I wonder which asteroid they had been tracking.
thief183
Member
There has been successful tests to change their orbit, the one I remember is the one we crashed using an old satellite, it worked. So as far as we can see them in time we are safe. .. for the next 100 year at least
West Texas CEO
GAF's Nicest Lunch Thief and Nosiest Dildo Archeologist
FunkMiller
Member
What a lot of people don't realise when it comes to this stuff is there is a bloody good reason why Earth has managed to survive this long without a major, catastrophic asteroid/meteor crash... and it's not luck.
The very fact we're all able to sit here having this conversation is testament to the effectiveness of our much larger neighbours like Jupiter having an extremely high capacity to hoover up debris and prevent anything too threatening coming at us. Add this to the fact that space is so mind bogglingly big that large asteroids hitting anything at all is vanishingly small, and you've got a recipe for a very safe planet to live on, and a very boring Bruce Willis movie.
The very fact we're all able to sit here having this conversation is testament to the effectiveness of our much larger neighbours like Jupiter having an extremely high capacity to hoover up debris and prevent anything too threatening coming at us. Add this to the fact that space is so mind bogglingly big that large asteroids hitting anything at all is vanishingly small, and you've got a recipe for a very safe planet to live on, and a very boring Bruce Willis movie.
The farther out we detect them, the less deviation required to make them miss. Of course the farther away, the harder it is for us to reach them and hit it with something.
An asteroid of sufficient size to wipe out ALL life on earth is probably far too large to be moved in any way, just too much mass. And if it did break up, the fragments would likely just spread the devastation around and still end us.
It's the small ones that hit a key site (like a major city or dam, overall unlikely) or medium ones that would disrupt an area enough to impact global trade that could still lead to a significant short term collapse in our society. Those smaller ones could be moved with less effort but breaking them up may result in pieces small enough to burn in the atmosphere, or it may just torch more terrain, hard to say. Tunguska was supposed to be a 50-60 METER wide asteroid that never hit directly, but caused an airbrust explosion of up to 50 MEGATONS, so you can imagine how bad something like that, or a series of them, would be in the world today, especially eithout warning or good inderstanding of what just happened. Don't need a 10km wide Dino killer to get us into real trouble.
mansoor1980
Member
Trogdor1123
Member
While I wish that was true, we don’t track nearly as much of the sky to do so.
They aren't flying at warp speed towards Earth. Any "rogue" object that enters the solar system would be tracked long before it was a danger.
sono
Gold Member
So the Aliens didnt appreciate the Voyager 2 message then
Should have listened to the Dark Forest theory
Should have listened to the Dark Forest theory
Pegasus Actual
Gold Member
Well, obviously, we would create a global defense team, these would be well-paying jobs, hiring practices would be focused on DEI. The white patriarchy has culturally appropriated 'science' for far too long, so the focus would be to draw wisdom from things like native rain dances, and Wiccan earth-healing rituals. You can't exactly expect white people to, "save the planet", all they do is capitalism and destroy the planet. I would love to tell you more but I just received an offer to become the new President of Harvard, so I must go now.
GymWolf
Gold Member
Sound like fun.
hyperbertha
Member
Even if their was an Armageddon causing asteroid coming towards earth, nasa wouldn't let the public know. The authorities wont let them.NASA has had every near-Earth asteroid mapped and cataloged for about 20 years at this point. Armageddon could never be made today because Billy Bob's joke about it being a "big ass sky" doesn't work anymore. But a lot of these "journalists" were kids in the late 90s when those dueling asteroid movies came out, they don't know about NASA's near-Earth tracking (they even have a website where you can look up every close approach with date), and fear headlines drive the clicks.
NEO Earth Close Approaches
NASA's Near-Earth Object (NEO) web-site. Data related to Earth impact risk, close-approaches, and much more.
Aggelos
Member
This is old news. To be specific dating back to 2004 - Apophis was discovered back in June 2004.
"99942 Apophis (provisional designation 2004 MN4) is a near-Earth asteroid and a potentially hazardous object with a diameter of 370 metres (1,210 feet) that caused a brief period of concern in December 2004 when initial observations indicated a probability up to 2.7% that it would hit Earth on April 13, 2029. Additional observations provided improved predictions that eliminated the possibility of an impact on Earth in 2029. Until 2006, a small possibility nevertheless remained that, during its 2029 close encounter with Earth, Apophis would pass through a gravitational keyhole of no more than about 800 kilometres (500 mi) in diameter."
en.wikipedia.org
"99942 Apophis (provisional designation 2004 MN4) is a near-Earth asteroid and a potentially hazardous object with a diameter of 370 metres (1,210 feet) that caused a brief period of concern in December 2004 when initial observations indicated a probability up to 2.7% that it would hit Earth on April 13, 2029. Additional observations provided improved predictions that eliminated the possibility of an impact on Earth in 2029. Until 2006, a small possibility nevertheless remained that, during its 2029 close encounter with Earth, Apophis would pass through a gravitational keyhole of no more than about 800 kilometres (500 mi) in diameter."
99942 Apophis - Wikipedia
Hmmm, sounds like it will pass pretty close. Better breed some fire breathing teleporting dragons so we can fight threads falling from the sky!This is old news. To be specific dating back to 2004 - Apophis was discovered back in June 2004.
"99942 Apophis (provisional designation 2004 MN4) is a near-Earth asteroid and a potentially hazardous object with a diameter of 370 metres (1,210 feet) that caused a brief period of concern in December 2004 when initial observations indicated a probability up to 2.7% that it would hit Earth on April 13, 2029. Additional observations provided improved predictions that eliminated the possibility of an impact on Earth in 2029. Until 2006, a small possibility nevertheless remained that, during its 2029 close encounter with Earth, Apophis would pass through a gravitational keyhole of no more than about 800 kilometres (500 mi) in diameter."
99942 Apophis - Wikipedia
Seriously, how has this series not been optioned for a TV show yet?
Hudo
Member
Realistically? Detecting it early enough so that you can send one (or many) unmanned space ship/drone to it that influences its trajectory enough to miss earth.
I think you're overestimating how much humans will work together to avert catastrophe. The pandemic at least taught us that.