- This really freaks me out, I don't believe it!
- Well, even if this one were to pass close enough to hit us, it's not very big.
The Voice of the Night
- What does Morgan Freeman have to say about it?
- Link!?
- I'm praying it will knock out R2 and prevent him from being an omnipresent pain in the ass of stellar proportions.
- How can we check out any graphics when OP refuses to post a link.
POST THE LINK BITCH!
- Of course the OP should have included the link. But I just pasted the article's first sentence into Google, and the link came right up.
Try it.
Teaching%20them%20how%20to%20fish
- [quote]it will pass inside the ring of geosynchronous weather and communications satellites.
Now, thats a little scary. Scientists have been warning for a while about how crowded the real estate in orbit has become. If something was to strike a satellite and cause it to break apart, the debris could collide with other satellites and cause a chain reaction. We could in a very short amount of time lose a huge chunk of the satellites we depend upon everyday.
- Sharing my find...
http://www.inquisitr.com/509309/asteroid-flyby-will-come-very-close-to-earth-next-week-video/
- Why should I get some booze and hunker down when it's going to pass by safely, OP? Typical paranoid American.
- The Inquisitor = National Enquirer
- The Inquisitor = National Enquirer in 1480
Eh%20eh%20get%20it%3F%20Spanish%20inquisition
- Sorry guys.
R10 I was joking hon.
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/asteroidflyby.html
OP
- Shut up r10. Seriously.
- We're all going to die!
- Here's The asteroid video
http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DQXyDwj1wpeA%26feature%3Dyoutube_gdata_player
- I read Yahoo's front page this morning first thing when I woke up. This was right above a headline that said something about an ad attack on Mitch McConnell. I managed to read that an asteroid had attacked him. Sadly, I snapped alert and knew this couldn't be true.
- I know at least a dozen Lockheed engineers who want some satellites taken out so they will keep their jobs to build replacements.
- Can't trust the scientists predictions after watching Melancholia.
- Why would it not get sucked into the Earth's gravitational pull?
- Same reason the Moon doesn't. It's too far away to have much effect. That's why we park satellites out there.
The Voice of the Night
- It will, R20. The Earth's gravitational effects are factored into the computed trajectory.
- But it is much bigger than the satellites...
- Gravity, for something that's moving through the solar system at high speed isn't like a vacuum cleaner, pulling everything near it in. The Earth will cause its trajectory to curve a little, but in whatever direction it's moving, the inertia acting to keep it moving in that direction is stronger than the pull of Earth's gravity.
The Voice of the Night
- Of course, a satellite could hit it and knock the asteroid enough so it diverts it into a collision course. If so, I hope it hits Topeka.
-
Hold me David; I'm scared.
Ann%20Romano
- Thanks for responding, VOTN.
- THat's a huge asteroid whose impact would be catastrophic.
- [quote]THat's a huge asteroid whose impact would be catastrophic.
No, it really isn't.
The asteroid which caused the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction was at least six miles in diameter. That's roughly 2500X the size of this one.
The Voice of the Night
- Whilst I do not usually believe in 'science' (unless I am emailing, getting medical treatment, watching tv, playing a CD, or switching on a light)... this scientific information proves that Jesus/ Yahweh/ Allah has had it with the gays after the vote for sodomy and child rape in the UK.
Religious%20nut
- Somebody call The Super Friends!
https://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DRnxN-ZT9EGE
Great%20Hera%21
- [quote]The asteroid which caused the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction was at least six miles in diameter. That's roughly 2500X the size of this one.
Any strategy for a similar occurrence?
- That is still way too big.
- I can see that most ya'll don't have a technical degree, like engineering. Want me to explain cosmology to you? And dufus R24, it is not INERTIA, it is MOMENTUM, dingbat.
- Can it be deflected to hit North Korea?
- Maybe THIS is what the Mayans were talking about.
- Yeah, well, we're not Cretaceous-Paleogene, we're much more fragile, R29.
- [quote]And dufus [R24], it is not INERTIA, it is MOMENTUM, dingbat.
You're quite correct. Classical mechanics was never my favorite part of physics.
[quote]Yeah, well, we're not Cretaceous-Paleogene, we're much more fragile, [R29].
Even if that were true, the Earth itself is not.
The Voice of the Night
- When will my gills grow in?
- Perhaps the insufferable thinks-he-knows-it-all VOTN should just stop digging. I know several lawyers and doctors with the same disease.
He should have stopped when he answered the perfectly reasonable question:
"Why would it not get sucked into the Earth's gravitational pull?"
with this bullshit answer:
"Same reason the Moon doesn't. It's too far away to have much effect. That's why we park satellites out there."
Anyone with minimal exposure to physics knows it's the mass and relative speed of the objects that determine if something is captured by gravity. The asteroid will not be pulled into Earth's orbit or pulled into a collision because it's moving too fast relative to the Earth, not because it's too far away.
And, dufus VOTN, the Moon IS caught in our gravitational well. That's why it orbits over your doltish head.
- Even worse, he seems to think satellites are "parked" where they are because Earth's gravity is less there. Hanging motionless, perhaps?
Embarrassing.
- [quote] THat's a huge asteroid whose impact would be catastrophic. // No, it really isn't.
But the Tunguska event, as I understand it, was from an asteroid about this size. It flattened things for 800 miles.
R40, if this asteroid were to hit a satellite, would it be possible for its course to be "deflected" on towards earth? Or would such a collision not slow it down or veer it off from its trajectory at all?
- [quote]But the Tunguska event, as I understand it, was from an asteroid about this size. It flattened things for 800 miles.
The Tunguska asteroid is thought to have been about twice the size of this one.
The Voice of the Night
- Satellites have very little mass relative to a large chunk of rock, so a collision with the asteroid wouldn't deflect it noticeably. Think about how much your car is deflected when it hits a fly.
- have they yet published a trajectory? All I know is it will pass on Feb 15 between 3PM and 6PM PST.
- Will we be able to see it go by?
- NEO--Near Earth Object
http%3A//www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DuIqtHKoSm68
- Isn't 150 feet basically just a small boulder?
Anonymous
- 150 feet is the size of half a football field. It's a fairly small size as asteroids go, but at the speed it's traveling at relative to the Earth (8X the speed of a high-powered rifle bullet), there's a lot of energy there if it were to hit.
Use this cool calculator to determine how bad the impact would be it would be if you were standing close by. Then compare it to some larger asteroids that come wandering by occasionally.
http://www.purdue.edu/impactearth
- Think of it this way:
You thow a ball really hard and it goes 20 yards and hits the ground. You throw it harder and it goes 40 yards and hits the ground.
Now imagine you are Superman. You throw the same ball from NYC really hard and fast and it lands in Moscow.
Now, you SUPER DUPER throw it so hard and fast that it NEVER lands back on Earth, in fact it goes around the Earth and passes you again and again. Suddenly, you have a satellite.
- [quote]by: Eh eh get it? Spanish inquisition
But nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition...
http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DsAn7baRbhx4
- They cannot predict that it won't hit Earth.
It might hit a satellite and change course. This is going to be huge...and the scariest event of the last 50,000 years
- VOTN will know. He knows everything.
- I want to see asteroids
- Meteorites hit Russia!!!!!
Oops.
- Too much of a coincidence.
- Video of Russian meteor!
https://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DNp_mpGYSBSA
- So did the asteroid hit? Is that the meteorite that failed after Russia put it in a chokehold
- Different piece of space rock.
The Voice of the Night
- Don't they say this every 10 years?
- Reports of injuries vary from 100 to 200 people. Busted ear drums??
- That hurt R57, scary!
- [quote]They cannot predict that it won't hit Earth.
Of course they can. The people monitoring this are very good at math, and even have computers to help them. They've been monitoring this since Feb last year, and they'd know by now if they weren't forecasting its trajectory correctly.
Someone up thread already explained why it couldn't be knocked off course by hitting a satellite. Basic physics.
Some additional info on DA14 at the link.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/14/asteroid-da14-facts-information-flyby_n_2689679.html
- Reports now saying over 400 injured.
- Apparently it exploded and fell down as either several chunks or as "rain"
- This is either Obama or the gays fault.
You happy now?!
- So this wasn't predicted? I guess we can expect that next asteroid to hit us now.
- Here's a view from Gawker. The thing just appears out of the sky, kind of eerie.
http://gawker.com/5984470/apparent-meteorite-crash-in-russia-causes-giant-explosions-forces-evacuation-of-nearby-offices-and-schools
- UPDATE: RT is now reporting, citing unconfirmed military sources, that the meteorite was intercepted by Russian air defense forces, who reportedly used a missile to destroy it while it was still 20 km in the air.
Bad-ass Russians
- Can anyone post updates to whether this meteor shower in Russia is the one that NASA predicted?
Thanx
- [quote]So this wasn't predicted? I guess we can expect that next asteroid to hit us now.
Lest I be accused of anything, it was probably too small for them to see it ahead of time.
Hell, I saw the Peekskill meteorite in 1992 at a high school football game, and I wasn't anywhere near New York.
http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DB17TmSSb5aI
The Voice of the Night
- A high school in Appleminneous Sotaminne broke out into a major brawl. Six 'mos squeed down the hall, prancing and lisping and yelling, don't hurt me, unless it's in a good way.
- 500 injured.
So is this meteor connected to the asteroid coming? Weird if it wasn't.
- Everyone ignored me when twice I asked about the asteroids trajectory. After Russia, aren't you all just a little bit curious now about where it will fly over?
- NASA's Russian reality check:
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/asteroidflyby.html
The Voice of the Night
- Lol at Russian's having cams in their cars and still playing Leona Lewis' Bleeding Love on the radio.
- [quote]NASA's Russian reality check:
NASA.... the ones who gave us Apollo 1, Challenger and Columbia
"Reality check" as if we are serfs looking up from our potato harvest and staring fearfully in the sky. Many hate scientists for talking down to people.
Their little charts and graphs show a trajectory, but not the part of the earth's face over which that asteroid will pass.
- Seriously, what the fuck is up with all these Russians having dashboard cams in their cars? Is that a ~thing~ there?
- Is it here yet?
- [quote]The people monitoring this are very good at math
You crack me up. These are fucking Americans. They can't make correct change if their lives depend on it.
- Russians probably witness auto accidents once a week.
- R78 I think its used in case you become targeted for insurance fraud. Apparently, the practice of staging an accident and making it seem like it was an innocent party's fault is common there.
- [quote]NASA.... the ones who gave us Apollo 1, Challenger and Columbia
The Near Earth Object Program is a whole other thing than manned spaceflight.
There's no great engineering that goes into plotting the motion of stellar bodies, just plain old doo-dah Newtonian mechanics which, as I've already admitted, isn't my strong suit.
The Voice of the Night
- [quote]Their little charts and graphs show a trajectory, but not the part of the earth's face over which that asteroid will pass.
From NASA's website:
Q: What date and what time will the asteroid be closest to Earth?
A: Asteroid 2012 DA14 will be closest to Earth on Feb. 15 at approximately 19:24 UTC (2:24 p.m. EST/11:24 a.m. PST). This time may change by a minute or two as the asteroid is tracked on its approach and predictions are refined.
At the time of closest approach, the asteroid will be over the eastern Indian Ocean, off Sumatra -- approx. latitude: -6 deg South. / longitude: 97.5 deg East.
- It's not just Americans monitoring these objects, R80. Monitoring space is an international business, which includes some very, very bright people from all around the world.
Also, I'm pretty sure that the Americans involved in international space projects and monitoring are not the same Americans who have trouble making change.
- R80 when did your nation put a man on the moon? Or a rover on Mars?
- R82 - thank you very much! That makes a lot of sense.
R78
- Russians tend to be violent and a car accident generally leads to a full out knock down fight. Judges won't convict on a he said/she said basis so the cameras come in handy for being able to approve assault.
- It's really astounding how many people out there(not just on this thread) don't even have a basic grasp of science.
- We could be in the early stages of an entire asteroid shower for all NASA knows.
- I"M SO SCQRED!!!
- Whimsical thought: what if they Mayan's were off by a month and a half and the size of the asteroid? After all, they were uneducated (by modern standards) and had no modern tools...
- They could have been off by a few tenths, which pushed up the zero hour by seven weeks.
- Live stream of asteroid pass
http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl2
- Thanks, R94. The live stream is interesting - you can really see the motion relative to the distant stars.
- Looks a little wobbly to me.
- Why didn't we plan to destroy it now when it's so close so people don't have to worry in the future?
Michael%20J%20Foxx
- How long has that thing been flying through space? Why doesn't it slow down?
- [quote]How long has that thing been flying through space?
We probably will never know.
[quote] Why doesn't it slow down?
See Newton's first law of motion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton%27s_laws_of_motion
- Don't be ridiculous R80 by making blanket statements. I live near NASA and most of my neighbors are rocket scientists or engineers. All are American born and bred.
- That doesn't mean they are intelligent. I had relatives work for NASA whom I wouldn't trust to take out the garbage.
- Well, R101, my neighbors are pretty smart and get their garbage out just fine. I've also enjoyed learning more from them about space operations and exactly how the space station and shuttle are operated.
- And it's gone.
- Apparently it completely missed Earth
The Russian meteorite was the real surprise. Good on them for catching it so quickly and reacting accordingly. That type of space-rock-to-earth event is supposed to be really rare!
- R19,I'm with you...
- This must've been a really scary few seconds for people who knew about the asteroid and then saw some huge light flying towards Earth.
http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DjclmjOOw_vA%26feature%3Dplayer_embedded
- Why is taking so long for someone to blame the meteor in Russia on Iran?
