I figured this might be interesting:
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/asteroid_risk_041224.html
eek.
Finally a good use for nukes...
I read this on Slashdot earlier. I'm not too worried yet.
1/243 chance it won't hit, and not for another 12 or so years.
You have better luck in dying in a car accident.
Actually..
QuoteUpdate, Dec. 25, 9:47 p.m. ET: The risk of an impact by asteroid 2004 MN4 went up slightly on Saturday, Dec. 25. It is now pegged at having a 1-in -45 chance of striking the planet on April 13, 2029. That's up from 1-in-63 late on Dec. 24, and 1-in-300 early on Dec. 24.
QuoteAstronomers still stress that it is very likely the risk will be reduced to zero with further observations. And even as it stands with present knowledge, the chances are 97.8 percent the rock will miss Earth.
Can't say I'm too scared.
Bush will probably declare war on the astroid terrorist and blow the whole thing up. Yay for Dubyah!
Looks like "The Dig" will become a reality after all...
...hmmm.
*Looks up possible job openings at a certain observatory in Borneo*
I tell you what, if it *does* hit, I'm getting my ass a front row seat! I'm not gonna be one of those monleys who crawls out of some shelter 10 years after it hits to try to scratch a living out of ash and rock. I've seen the Mad Max movies, and I'm all set.
C.
I sure hope Harry Stamper is still alive then- wait, he died already... nevermind.
Quote from: c.leksutin on Mon 27/12/2004 17:51:18
I tell you what, if it *does* hit, I'm getting my ass a front row seat!Ã, I'm not gonna be one of those monleys who crawls out of some shelter 10 years after it hits to try to scratch a living out of ash and rock.Ã, I've seen the Mad Max movies, and I'm all set.
This is exactly what I said!Ã, I wanna be at ground zero when that sucker plows into the Earth!Ã, Go out with a bang!
Plus in 25 years I'll be 53 years old ... that's a good time to go out.Ã, Before my bodily functions are no longer under my control!
ill be 28. thats scary. but nothing could ever happen to us brits, our upper lips are too stiff for that kind of stuff.
I blame mandarb, tempting fate with his adventure games
Quote from: Zooty on Mon 27/12/2004 20:27:25
ill be 28.
So that makes you what, 3 years old?
DM, you mean you're 28 and still haven't lost your bodily functions? D:
And I who thought I was superior for still having some left at 16...
I'll be...*does some serious calcualtions so that I wouldn't make some mistakes* hmmm...38? Almost 39;)
Yay! I will die before I get 40!!!
Hey guys! Why don't we just move the entire earth a few miles to the left? :D
Yeah, and George Michael isn't gay right?
Righto. So, help me push!
Bah, you numbskulls. Just vote Morgan Freeman for president and everything will work out in an emotional and heartwarming way.
Actually if we vote in Stanley Anderson by then, we can hopefully resurrect Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck and place them in a starring role as the "World's Best Deep Core Drilling Team" and "Nuke The Rock From The Inside." (more) (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120591/).
I don't know which idea I hate more: Morgan Freeman or Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck
...or maybe we could just get everyone in China to jump at the same time?
Well... apparently the big earthquake that made the big tsunami was the equivalent of a million atomic bombs going off all at once, or something, anyway they also rekon that it shifted the earths rotational axis, or something silly.
So more problems... YAY!!!
For more informative information: http://www.google.com
Personally i don't see how this works but hey.
PS: i wouldn't rely on my information
Yes Daz, what you are saying is true.
The geologists said that the board/panel/whatever-you-call-it-in-UK shifting was so powerful that the earth swinged around it's axis for a moment.
Yeah.
And i think we should better call Clint, cuz he's DA SPACE COWBOY!
And about death options, by then, i would hire a plane, or a space shuttle (which would i learn to pilot by M$ Space flight simulator 2028, the 2029 version will have too many bugs and the holo-multiplaying option disabled without the service pack 3 for Windows XXXLongtube).
Yeah!
Pilot Up!
(or i would just learn to surf like hell, so if it falls in the ocean, it would make a hell of a tsunami to surf on.)
Woo hoo!
700 km/h Surfs' up!
C.
Quote from: Highwaygal on Mon 27/12/2004 20:37:12
Quote from: Zooty on Mon 27/12/2004 20:27:25
ill be 28.
So that makes you what, 3 years old?
i just added the 12 years from lgms post without checking. i will in fact be like 41, thats not a bad age to die.
No one will die. Even if an asteroid the size of US hits earth, a few people will still be there. But no asteroid is that large. And if an impact is on the way they will evacuate people on the other continents, or on boats, or whatever. Few will die, almost none at all. IF there will be
42 years old is half your life. You must be nuts to think that it is a good age to die.
It will be probably something simmilar to this earthquake that took place in Indian Ocean, except fewer deaths. some months of darkness (perhaps years), lots of snow or rain, and strange weather troughout the year. If it falls in water then there is no problem, only tsunamis which can be avoided, floods, and that's it, no other side effects. I am just guessing :P
I'll be 56 if this does happen, or i could be long gone before it happens.
(http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00000G3PA.01.LZZZZZZZ.gif)
Time to call in this guy for help.
Now get on that rock and start drilling. :)
Quote from: [lgm] on Mon 27/12/2004 14:10:10
I read this on Slashdot earlier. I'm not too worried yet.
1/243 chance it won't hit, and not for another 12 or so years.
You have better luck in dying in a car accident.
actually is more like 1/45 chance of hitting now. At least that is what I've read. The worrying has got a bit higher.
Quote from: avatar on Tue 28/12/2004 22:48:08
some months of darkness (perhaps years), lots of snow or rain, and strange weather troughout the year. If it falls in water then there is no problem, only tsunamis which can be avoided, floods, and that's it, no other side effects. I am just guessing :P
Maybe some global warming? Hmmm?
well, why not?
let's add some earth destabilisation, changing the inclination of the axis. probably some species dissapear. permanent change of the climate. whatever.
anyway. it won't happen. i have faith in the future.
Avatar, your lack of knowleadge of what a meteorit of the size of Manhattan (Not the entire US, I am talking of just Manhattan) could do to earth is very funny... ^_^ You must be a happy guy...
Now they say this Asteroid won't hit the earth in 2029. (It will now hit sometime in 2005 insteadÃ, :o hehe, just kidding!Ã, ;D )
Anyways, what follows is a little news snippet I grabbed from Yahoo news:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Whew! Asteroid Won't Hit Earth in 2029, Scientists Now Say
Wed Dec 29,10:14 AM ETÃ, Ã, Science - Space.com
Robert Roy Britt
Senior Science Writer
SPACE.com
The world can exhale a collective sigh of relief. A newfound asteroid tagged with the highest warning level ever issued will not strike Earth, scientists said Monday.
The giant space rock, named 2004 MN4, was said on Dec. 23 to have an outside shot at hitting the planet on April 13, 2029. The odds climbed as high as 1-in-37, or 2.7 percent, on Monday, Dec. 27.
Researchers had flagged the object as one to monitor very carefully. It was the first asteroid to be ranked 4 on the Torino Scale, a Richter-like measure for potentially threatening space rocks. The asteroid is about a quarter mile (400 meters) wide, large enough to cause considerable local or regional damage were it to hit the planet.
All along, scientists said additional observations would likely reduce the chance of impact to zero for the April 13 scenario, but they did not expect any significant new data to allow such a downgrading for days or weeks.
Instead, old observations provided the data necessary to rule out an impact.
Several groups were looking for the asteroid in past observations. Jeff Larsen and Anne Descour of the Spacewatch Observatory near Tucson, Arizona, found very faint images of asteroid 2004 MN4 on archival images dating to March 15 this year. Astronomers already had observations in June and from this month.
"An Earth impact on April 13, 2029 can now be ruled out," read a statement issued Monday evening by asteroid experts Don Yeomans, Steve Chesley and Paul Chodas at NASA (news - web sites)'s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
It is not the first time a potentially threatening asteroid has been theoretically defused by looking into the past, pointed out Clark Chapman of the Southwest Research Institute. Most famously, a space rock catalogued as 1997 XF11 was said, in 1998, to be on a collision course before archived data showed it would pass harmlessly.
"Past observations can greatly extend the time baseline and strongly influence knowledge of the orbit," Chapman told SPACE.com. "At some level, we are 'lucky' that these earlier sightings were made since 2004 MN4 is usually too faint to be detected by near-Earth-object search telescopes."
The difficulty in predicting a precise path earlier in the game owes to knowing only a small section of an asteroid's orbit around the Sun. New observations -- or old ones -- make the known path longer and allow a better prediction of the full path, as well as where an asteroid will be years from now.
Orbits change slightly with time because of gravitational tugs by the Sun and planets, among other factors.
2004 MN4 circles the Sun, but unlike most asteroids that reside in a belt between Mars and Jupiter, the 323-day orbit of 2004 MN4 lies mostly within the orbit of Earth.
Scientists cannot say that the asteroid will never hit Earth, but there are no serious threats in the foreseeable future. "No subsequent Earth encounters in the 21st century are of any concern," the NASA statement read.
Quote from: avatar on Tue 28/12/2004 22:48:08
No one will die. Even if an asteroid the size of US hits earth, a few people will still be there. But no asteroid is that large. And if an impact is on the way they will evacuate people on the other continents, or on boats, or whatever. Few will die, almost none at all. IF there will be
42 years old is half your life. You must be nuts to think that it is a good age to die.
It will be probably something simmilar to this earthquake that took place in Indian Ocean, except fewer deaths. some months of darkness (perhaps years), lots of snow or rain, and strange weather troughout the year. If it falls in water then there is no problem, only tsunamis which can be avoided, floods, and that's it, no other side effects. I am just guessing :P
Haha. I think you would be in for quite a nasty surprise...
I guess I had better start coating my house with lead paint or something, huh?
Quote from: [lgm] on Mon 27/12/2004 14:10:10
I read this on Slashdot earlier. I'm not too worried yet.
1/243 chance it won't hit, and not for another 12 or so years.
You have better luck in dying in a car accident.
???
it is still a chance ...
If it hits then we'll all die (exept for those who aren't in a big cave in the USA!!!). Because the climate will change. Ofcourse if this thing is bigger than a suitcase. That's what I think.
Bah, this'll soon blow over when the asteroid mysteriously disappears after the janitor cleans the lens