We just survived a near miss with an asteroid.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7921279.stm




In the grand-scheme of things - this was a pretty close call.

I am open to the possibility that there could be more of them about to smash into the earth and obliterate it to pieces.


EDIT:
I also bring to your attention that it was only spotted on Saturday.


TECHNICALLY WE POTENTIALLY ONLY HAD TWO DAYS LEFT, IF IT WAS ON A COLLSION COURSE.

Bah, the government was probably tracking it for month. They just don't tell us.

I'm too young to die :(

So what if it drops? Tough luck...

I want to finish my Blitz Max game. :( Better hurry up I guess! :)

(Before the "Max Blitz" hits.)

Maybe there were little guys on that rock too, saying "phew it just missed us!". Maybe they have a Puki too! And a forum.

Shame they didn't come a little closer. They could have taken ours back to the Mothership.

You'd still get folks complaining cos the forums have gone down.

So before you spotted it then.


Since we don't have any anti-asteroid missiles yet it wouldn't matter how long we had.

Gfk: Good one :-)

If it drops it'll drop and there'll be no Bruce Willis going up in to space trying to stop it. Maybe Superman?

I think they have known about this for a while, i remember reading a while back we were in for a 'near orbit pass' in 2009 at some point (could be the same thing).

Scary though :O

..this should be a solution :)..

a big trampoline?

..yeah..bouncing stuff up.. :)

After all...we're dinosaurs really. Time for a new species to fk with earth for a while. ;)

@puki -

At least it was a bit more than they had in Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

quick ! into the Millennium Falcon ! :)

Wonder if that would work. Have three shuttles in space, with a big strong net tied between them. Catch the thing in the net :P

Even if we had multiple years warning of an impending, confirmed, collision I don't think we could do anything to prevent it.

-> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMtMs_WW1Vg&feature=PlayList&p=61E41AD0A201ACC8&index=0&playnext=1

True, but within 2 days I still could be on the other side of the world in case the rock would fall where I stand now.

I'm for sending Bruce Willis up there too. Although, I wonder if he'd give his life for real if it came to it.

..dont worry folks..if your name is written on that rock, you'll kiss it for sure..so why bother :)

There are ways to deflect an asteroid. Also, this was a pretty small asteroid, so it didn't threaten the human race.

Makes me wonder if my last two days have been worth this miraclous salvation.

http://www.b612foundation.org/

It was big enough to cause a major catasrophe depending on where it landed.


I find the whole thing concerning:

It missed us by just 72,000 km (44,750 miles) - in galactic terms, that is a close shave.

It was spotted just 2 days before potential impact.

In summary a 140 meter diameter equivalent, Hayabusa-shaped NEO, with a rotation period
of 6 hours was approached by the t-GT spacecraft with the initial task of determining a
precise orbit for the NEO. Effective convergence in the orbit determination was reached
after approximately 8 days of tracking and resulted in about a 5 meter (one sigma) error
ellipse projected forward 18 years in time. A second orbit determination was performed
following a simulated kinetic impact deflection during which the t-GT functioned as a standoff
observer. The post-deflection orbit determination converged to the pre-deflection
precision level of accuracy in only one day of tracking.

The solar powered, 1150kg. t-GT spacecraft towing performance evaluation was performed
in a 200 day simulated operation in which the t-GT was stationed 155 meters forward of the
NEO center of mass along its velocity vector. A very simple control law was employed to
maintain the spacecraft within a “box” centered on this nominal location. No control
problems or unusual excursions were experienced during the months of towing which
produced the desired velocity change of ~0.07cm/sec. During towing a NEO acceleration of
0.22 microns/sec/day was achieved at a fuel expenditure of approximately 0.05 kg/day.


EDIT:

oops, they fail:

Our preferred solution to deflecting an incoming near Earth asteroid (NEA), for reasons that are clarified below, is to rendezvous and "dock" with it at either its North or South Pole, realign the asteroid’s spin vector to a preferred direction and then push it (gently and for a long time) until we’ve changed its speed enough to miss the Earth. This scenario is very direct. It makes the key assumption, well supported by statistics and common sense that we will know of a pending impact many years ahead of time. The strange logic of NEA detection is that we will either know that an impact is pending several decades ahead of time, or that we will be hit by an asteroid we don’t know about with no warning at all! The critical importance of the detection program is that as you detect and track more and more NEAs you increase the former category and reduce the latter.

There is a very big one on a collision course due in 70 - 80 years, but I guess they will have a solution by then...

the first i heard about this was 7pm GMT when i got home from work and that was only due to yahoo being my home page, news didnt meantion it when i was in ear shot of the radio and no one had talked about it so im guessing news didnt 'break' until after i had entered my radio less fridge to finish off the delveries

i saw something that said another near miss is due in 2012 or there abouts
even if it had hit depending on the size and location there would be some/alot of damage to the surrounding area, i mean tungungsta(sp) was leveled 100 years ago
it also said it was less than the distance between the earth and the moon, not that they said it passed inbetween them, but if it had hit the moon instead of the earth it would be just as damaging as the moons gravitational pull or the lack there off could be far reaching iir its not just the tides that are affected (aside from the obvious were 80% water bit that gets pulled up here and there)

i said 'break' in quotes as the skys are observed all the time and this might have been known about for some time, and if world governments had issued a statement we might have had mass hysteria over those two days, i dont feel relieved that it missed , its passing and subsequent missing went unnoticed by myself and would have done for much longer if it wasnt the top webstory and also posted about here
in other words ignorance is bliss

@Ginger Tea: point well made...

On the space shuttle net thingy, well judging by the size of the asteroid we could've got by with 2 space shuttles with an uber elastic band, obviously the shuttles might need ejection seats retro fitted coz they might ping together - then again a large (erm massive?) engine upgrade would allow the shuttles to tug boat the asteroid to safety.
Problem solved then (;-).

Yeah it'd be nice to have a chance to get to the other side of the world, however I think accomodation might be at a premium - its bad enough near Newcastle each year when the Great North Run (a half marathon) takes place.

Interesting thread Puki!

What makes me laugh is the human race (at least as recognisable as such) has gone for a million years happily not knowing or giving a toss, then in the century someone invents a telescope big enough to see "youranus" and sees big cunks of rock flying around.. that combined with a few cheesy hollywood blockbusters and everyone is convinced we are to be flattened at any second (maybe, but im not going to let it ruin my day) :D
Youve got more chance of croaking eating a bad piece of chicken.

LOL

yeah, i think dodgy chicken is more hazardous than kebabs... or is it?

Man, that was a blast from the past. Now that i've remembered this game...I do feel very compelled to play it.

Anything travelling at astronomical speeds, with enough mass to make it through the atmosphere, is potentially a threat to the human race.

Also why is it called a near miss? It missed. Wouldn't it be a near hit?

Because it missed us while passing near us.
So, it could be a Far-Miss if the asteroid missed us AND was far away.

(I'm just speculating through common-sense)

i think hes getting at the gramatical errors of the english language

"i nearly missed the train" = "i caught the train but in the nick of time"
people dont say
"he nearly missed my nose" they say "he hit my nose"
for something to nearly miss seems to indicate that it did infact hit, but as its our language (speaking as an english speaking englishman) were allowed to have odd contradicting rules ;)

Theres 2 different types of English, the first is the bowler hat version that the whole world thinks the entire nation talks in... "What hoe, I'm taking my tea on the veranda, jolly good old chap" poncey crap.

Then theres proper English, accented to the hilt, full of slang and missing or changed letters in the pronunciation...

Thats real English! ;)

Dabz

Oh, and regarding the asteroid, if I knew it was coming, I'd pull a deck chair out of the shed, grab a can, light a ciggie, sit back.... then either be dazzled in awe if it was anywhere near, or fill the smalls with the contents of my innards.

Until that day comes, I couldnt tell you which way it'll go! ;D

Dabz

i nearly missed the post button ;)

D4NM4N is right. Make the most of every day ! :)

Nope.

I had asteroids once. Had to sit on a lilo for 3 weeks.

lol@GFK

The solution is simple...

We simply develop a fleet of triangle shaped starships. We then bend space and time to confine the asteroid to a dimension that allows it to be confined to a square in space, having wrap around edges in some kind of perverted circular reality.

Then our ships fly around this odd dimension and shoot tiny bullets at the asteroids, breaking them into tiny pieces which eventually disappear.

This technique was developed in 1979 and I believe there were multiple simulations developed as well.

If you could bend space and time, you wouldn't need the starships anyway ;)



Or it could just write-off your motor... http://www.astronet.ru/db/xware/msg/1217918/peekskill_thomas_big.jpg.html

Makes you wonder why NASA never thought of that.

Perhaps it's because they don't include movie writers on their staff =D

who needs movie writers when you can hire atari and other late 70's arcade coders?

/me wonders if kryzon has ever played asteroids

Why dont we just fly up there, stick a 'not known at this address' note on it and jobs a good'un!!! :)

Dabz

Yeah, send asteroids by Parcelforce!! It'll disappear never to be seen again! :D

WOW! it was close to the moon aswell.Time to pack up and move to Mars i suppose.Get all the nice real estate before all you humans move in.

I'm not sure of what you're talking about, ginger =X

I've never played asteroids. /lie

@Topic: I'm sure we could easily make the asteroid suffer a quantum-phase-inducer-photon-interchange-conduit-warp-resonance-integrity-breach-failure-cascade-pulse.

And be done with it, that is.

Is that the same as whipping it with a damp tea-towel? :D

Dabz

:D

I like Naughty Alien's suggested solution with the bouncy mat :)

TBH the thing is if the government saw the asteroid and it was on a collision course they wouldnt tell you anyway :)

dont worry.. a commet will come and breake apart. next cyckle it nukes whole world. like a milions of nukes al around globe.. leves nothing left.


only the patent and copyrights is left :)

Keep taking the pills.

apparantly the best place to avoid being hit by an asteroid is in an asteroid belt
the gaps between each one is huge, no idea how huge without boiling a kettle or getting my qi book of general ignorance out, but it is no way as crowded as the likes of empire strikes back would have you belive

it was also noted that the odds of a plane carrying a bomb were one in whatever but a plane carrying two bombs were even more remote, so the safest way to travel in the air would to pack your own bomb

dont you just love the internet for unsubstantiated roumers and dubious facts

LOL, I have been thouroughly entertained with this topic, and thought
that it was time for me to chime in too!

1 I don't see the need to get fussed up over this, since the earth has
been around for BILLIONS of years, and never gotten destroyed by
an asteroid.

2 Even if one DID hit, and wiped out all of man kind, there would
inevitably be some surviors left who hid underground.
(I.e Matrix, Terminator 2, etc. There are ALWAYS survivors.)

3 If we absolutely had to come up with a solution to get rid of it,
I'm all for Naught Aliens Trampoline idea ^_^


Puki always comes up with such entertaining posts :)

WERDNA

blitzers will save the day - lol

or if not human something will come out of the ashes
small mammals survived the dinosaur killing asteroid and subsequent ash cloud blotting out the sun for hypothetically a long time
although dr who would have you belive adrik did that by crashing a ship into the earth (that was formed by a racnoss ship hiding)

and as ive just watched the first 3 serise of the remade galactica (over a 3 day period) i cant help but think, if mankind as it stands today is the same that left kobol and went in the other direction to the other 12 why are we so backwards, perhaps that ship crashed wiping out the dinosaurs and our exsisting cultural and technological levels

and true mankind has fall out shelters all over the place, and deep impact showed a contingency plan (that was kinda elitist) but how long would they have to stay under for? and what would be left for them to emerge from

I imagine they wont need too long underground as its fall out is non-nuclear, so apart from the predicted global firestorm, then the settling of all the manky gases... They'd probably come out and it'll be dark, with quite a substantial amount of ice kicking around after the blanket of gas in the auld atmos cools the planet.

EDIT: Oh, and life is pretty stubborn so I imagine a lot of ferns and other vegitation will just sit idle until the sun eventually gets through, then it'll start springing up again.

Then again, I'm just a builder, which has me thinking, I'll be pretty handy to know after the apocalypse calmed down! ;)

Dabz

As luck is with the stupid ones i wouldn't be too concerned about that earth is getting destroyed this way.

We'll need at least one electrician to survive too.

The unfortunate thing about comparisons with the past is precisely our modern technology. Imagine all the waste, nuclear, chemical and other, as the impact throws apart nuclear power plants, industrial waste containers, chemical & biological weapon laboratories and other goodies. That unnaturally toxic crap is more dangerous than the impact itself.

Good point Error man,

we could survive the impact itself by just staying underground, but
all the toxins and chemicals released from the nuclear plants and such
would A' infect massive portions of the planet, and seriously limit the
livable area, or B' Turn us all into mutants ^_^
(I prefer option B :D )



WERDNA

I think if the meteor actually hit us, it would burn\destroy those hazardous wastes instead of just releasing them. The force of the explosion would combust them instead of spreading them through the atmosphere.

PS: We got ourselves a zombie game story starting to come up, eh?

someone make a game !!! :)