Asteroid Due Here Soon »
Posted By prevgofreka 1 year, 3 months ago in Science & TechnologyThe asteroid Apophis 99942, discovered in 2004, has a trajectory calculation estimating that in the year 2029, Apophis will fly only 30,000 to 40,000 km from the Earth. At that time the asteroid won't hit the Earth, but planet's gravity will affect its trajectory and in 2035 Apophis will probably hit the our planet.
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Comments So Far: 47
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Tuishimi1 year, 3 months ago
I sank this one because it is basically a FUD article. As someone else stated, the chance this asteroid will hit Earth (NASA report) is 1 in 45000 (next time around).
I think, I HOPE the government will inform the population when a real threat is discovered.
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coreyspring1 year, 3 months ago
I sank it for the same reason: every month or so someone submits a story to Netscape about how this asteroid is coming to kill us all, which isn't quite the case - the current probability is 1 in 12.3 million.
For more, see the Wikipedia page
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/99942_Apophis
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stephen-johnson1 year, 3 months ago
Thanks for posting this.
Eventually, another asteroid will hit the earth - but it looks like it isn't this one
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WCFIELDS1 year, 3 months ago
It's a lot easier to understand "Global Warming". Just stop driving "Gas Guzzlers" et. al..........
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mark-stevens1 year, 3 months ago
I talked to the L.A. Times science department. They confirmed what the Airforce wrote up on a scenero several years, "what if two asteroids were approaching earth"? That The movie Deep Impact did "borrow" from this Airforce report. The Airforce's imaginary asteroids were to hit 2028. There was a kiss it good bye description of the damage done by the impacts.
Last odds I saw were 10,000 to one. Even the 45,000 to one report is a lot better odds than a lottery winner had.
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sotiris-k1 year, 3 months ago
Actually it is extremelly wrong to consider a probability as high and i repeat as high as 1 in 45000 a no reason to be alarmed aware and focused in proving it eventually 0 or establishing solutions ahead of time. I understand of course what you are saying and i do agree with you this is an already established event and nothing new or worthy of massive immediate importance while a ton of other issues are from food safety , environment , war ,povetry , poor education etc. The reason 1/45000 is important is because of what it carries with it if it becomes 1. A potentially lethal event. But i find the article poorly written (even grammatically lol)and i agree it may be attactive to sink.
In fact the second time around is not a certainty in terms of hitting us as implied. It will depend on a window of crossing the first time around (if it goes through a geometric subspace of initial conditions -termed window ) if the probability to get hit the second rendez-vous improves massively or not.
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foksipayne1 year, 3 months ago
I'll be watchin it & bitin' my nails, the whole way in! YYYEEE-HHAAAWWW!
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not2needy1 year, 3 months ago
It may not actually happen, but it's still very interesting and bound to happen someday.
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stephen-johnson1 year, 3 months ago
It's scary to think that an asteroid that is only 390 meters in diameter can hit the earth with a force 100,000 times that of the Hiroshima/Nagasaki A-bombs. These were 20 kiloton devices. If my math is good (after a couple of brewskis), that's 2,000,000,000 tons of TNT - two gigatons. Damn!
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foksipayne1 year, 3 months ago
Ha ha, sounds like Stargate-SG1! sending ppl into space to destroy Apophis. Maybe the show predicted this? LOL
I'm sorry if it really does wind up hitting us, but you gotta admit that is kinda humorous!
I voted cuz it's something to ponder on, more destruction? seems all that's on anybody's mind anymore.
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p0ison_m1nd1 year, 3 months ago
"The asteroid won't hit the Earth, but planet's gravity will affect its trajectory and in 2035 Apophis will probably hit the our planet. That is the biggest danger for us in past 200 years. Even if asteroid will flies a safe distance away from Earth, it can be bad for our planet."
I don't want to sound like a grammar nazi but doesn't anyone proof read anymore?
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PsychoHosebeast1 year, 3 months ago
Is that an esl spellcheck too?
ESL or not, it's hard to believe someone knows what they're talking about when they write an article in a language in which they can't even construct a sentence properly. Several times.
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nostalgia1 year, 3 months ago
NASA advised Congress on steps that could be taken to find and divert threatening asteroids only to conclude that it couldn't afford them.
More troublesome is the threat of smaller asteroids, greater than 460 feet in diameter (about 1/7th the threshold of the really scary big ones), that could devastate a region but not the whole globe. NASA estimates that some 20,000 of these might be potentially hazardous; it has identified only a fraction of them. Two years ago Congress asked NASA to propose new search programs and to analyze ways to divert asteroids on a collision course with Earth. The agency did that in a March report to Congress but balked at the notion of spending up to $1 billion or more to build search instruments or spacecraft.
http://impact.arc.nasa.gov/news_detail.cfm?ID=172
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Mowens19841 year, 3 months ago
Don't forget Steve Buscemi (sp), but don't let him have a gun!
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worthlesswhiteman1 year, 3 months ago
Well at least that will settle things. My sh*t *ss so called retirement account won't have to last that long. Great story....makes me feel good that there is a solution.
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gfarral1 year, 3 months ago
The scientists have 12 years to develop protection theories and methods then test them out when the asteroid passes by.
One method was the use of sunlight and lasers I believe.
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MongoKahn1 year, 3 months ago
The pockmarked rocks "they" tell you about are sure to miss. By a mile or a million, a miss is a miss. The ones they don't tell you about, are the ones that'll give you a bad hair day. The ones that "they" don't know about, come with sun blinding their eyes like a dogfighter pilot "coming out of the sun" to pounce on his prey. The way I see it every day I get up I fully realize could be my last day. I live every day as if it were. It makes me more polite, less likely to fight and more forgiving.
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KeyserSooze1 year, 3 months ago
What the Mayan thing was saying is that the earths magnetic field will switch, thus bringing about the end of the world.
Of course the world already ended with Hale-Bopp, the return of Haley's comet, and the turn of the millenium from multiple causes, not the least of which was the dreaded "y2k bug".
Or maybe the alramist were as full of crap back then as they are now.
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UBCONFUSE1 year, 3 months ago
How about this, when it flys by, coordinate an intercept to have a nuclear device trail the object until it is far away and going away from Earth, then explode the nuke and use the shock wave to eject Apopsis from the near earth orbit? Will this work anyone?
Alex Baldwin, Sean Penn and a few other really BIG STARS, would make excellent bomb pilots.
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sotiris-k1 year, 3 months ago
If it passes the earth and its established it got through the window of initial conditions that dramatically improve hit probability the 2nd time around then even a small change in the momentum of the object is enough to prevent a hit. However it has to be done seriously enough to indeed prevent it and not by accident focus it! I know this may sound idiotic but it can happen if you are not in total control of what you do.For some reason NASA lately doesnt seem to like the nuclear idea although i disagree with them completely. Of course movies have totally naively and completely wrongly implied it as a solution even when the object is hours away (noway by then) . But i like it purely in terms of the physics involved. To this day the only device mankind has that can release energy of massive magnitude in a fairly pre-established way is a nuclear weapon. You can either use it to change the momentum (by detonating it on the side)or destroy it by placing it somewhat deep in the surface .
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sotiris-k1 year, 3 months ago
In fact there have been studies before offering nuclear detonations in space as a propulsion mechanism for future spaceships. Now this is a massive object and a nuclear device will not significantly change its momentum but even 1 in 100000 change is enough to alter impact scenario because it would have been done years before the strike. Alternatively if its used to break it in pieces the center of mass (CM) will probably still remain in collision trajectory but due to the fact there will be several pieces involved to define that CM none of them will be exactly at the CM location by collision time so there will be no collision as the theoretical point (CM) crosses the planet.
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PsychoHosebeast1 year, 3 months ago
It's actually pretty arrogant to consider that after billions of years, one would be lucky enough to be present at the end of the world.
Unfortunately you don't get to tell anyone about it afterward.
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