The Down Range Forum
Member Section => Down Range Cafe => Topic started by: Big Frank on February 08, 2018, 10:57:35 PM
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On Tuesday, an asteroid passed within 114,000 miles (184,000 kilometers), slightly more than halfway to the moon. Another asteroid is headed our way — the second this week — but there's no need to worry.
The newly discovered space rock will pass within 39,000 miles (64,000 kilometers) of Earth on Friday afternoon. That's less than one-fifth the distance to the moon.
A whopper asteroid named Apophis — estimated at approximately 1,000 feet or more than 300 meters — will pass at just one-tenth the distance between Earth and the moon in 2029.
If Apophis does hit the Earth it shouldn't be an extinction level event, if that makes you feel any better. I've read a lot of different information and opinions about it. Someone said it would make a crater 2 km wide and 1/2 km deep. Someone else said it could kill hundreds of millions of people.
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/asteroid-coming-close-friday-worry-safe-52939065
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Extinction event is relative...if you are under that bitch when if drops you'd have a different outlook about extinction!
Sky & Telescope has more details at:
http://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-news/asteroid-2018-cb-graze-earth-friday-watch-online/ (http://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-news/asteroid-2018-cb-graze-earth-friday-watch-online/)
There is a Virtual Telescope Project that will be live streaming the event Friday afternoon.
https://www.virtualtelescope.eu/2018/02/05/asteroids-2018-cc-2018-cb-close-encounters-live-observing-session-6-9-feb-2019/ (https://www.virtualtelescope.eu/2018/02/05/asteroids-2018-cc-2018-cb-close-encounters-live-observing-session-6-9-feb-2019/)
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So we are safe for at least the next 11 years...and I will have plenty more to worry about till then...
I'll put it on my ToDo list to start worrying in 2025...
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Well, it's Friday afternoon and we're still alive, so it must have missed. If I'm still around in 11 years I'll pay more attention to the near miss (I hope) of Apophis. The calculated trajectory has changed several times since it was discovered, but it currently looks like it will miss Earth, this time.
This was posted at https://www.express.co.uk/ last June:
Astronomers have calculated the Apophis asteroid will speed past Earth on April 13, 2029, at just 18,600 miles away – a hair’s width in astronomical terms. To put that into perspective, the moon is 238,900 miles away.
Due to the close proximity in which the giant space rock will pass, scientists believe the near-miss will alter the asteroid’s orbit, which could lead it to collide with Earth in the future.
If the 27 billion kg asteroid were to hit Earth, scientists calculate that it would leave a crater over a mile wide and a staggering 518 metres deep.
However, most worryingly, the impact would be equivalent to 880 million tons of TNT being detonated – some 65,000 times as powerful as the nuclear bomb which was dropped on Hiroshima.
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The circumference of the earth at the equator is 24,901 mi
And the radius diameter is 7,917.5 mi
A geosynchronous orbit, where fixed position satellites orbit is 26,199 mi
So that 18,600 miles in inside the orbit of some of our satellites....
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Diameter is 7917, not radius.
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Diameter is 7917, not radius.
My error
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The 26,199 mile radius from the center of the Earth to geosynchronous orbit, minus the Earth's radius of 3,963 miles at the equator, puts the satellites 22,236 miles above mean sea level. I knew they were 22,000 some miles away but had to look it up. If Apophis passes 18,600 miles away from the Earth that would put it 3,636 miles inside of geosynchronous orbit. It would only be about 2.35 Earth diameters away, whether you go by the equatorial diameter of 7,926 miles, the mean diameter of 7,918 miles, or the polar diameter of 7,900 miles. 2.35 Earth diameters is microscopic on the scale of the universe. In other words, way too close for comfort.
And that's if those calculations prove correct and it doesn't get a little gravitational nudge. The universe contains 4.9% ordinary matter, and the other 95.1% is dark energy plus dark matter. Did the calculations for Apophis' trajectory take all of that invisible matter and energy into account? Is the theory of of dark matter and dark energy right in the first place? No one knows for sure.
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But all the geosynchronous sats are only over the equator.
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So we are safe for at least the next 11 years...
No, we're not safe. These last two asteroids were only discovered a few days out. Apophis is rather larger and hence it's been detected way out there.
Tomorrow they could discover one coming in for a direct hit in just a couple of days.
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I’m safe!
My creator said so...all these lefties here in the Northeast are screwed!
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But all the geosynchronous sats are only over the equator.
Yep, give or take a little. They have to be. Many of them appear to do a figure-8 rather than stand still. But if they're also in a geostationary orbit they look like they never move.
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Some scientists are saying one of those asteroids could hit the Earth, just like they did in the past, but it's unlikely. I also thought it was unlikely that an elk would ever knock a helicopter out of the sky, but that happened. https://www.sltrib.com/news/2018/02/13/elk-brings-down-helicopter-in-eastern-utah/
ETA: That says the flight crew was from Australia but they were actually from Texas. And they spelled Australia wrong.
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Or that a commercial airliner would hit a salmon mid-air. Juneau, AK.
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In ancient Greece Aeschylus was killed by a tortoise dropped by an eagle which had mistaken his bald head for a rock suitable for shattering the shell of the tortoise. If a tortoise can fall out of the sky and kill you so could an asteroid, likely or not. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeschylus
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Aww we are all safe. The solar storm will take out all of the asteroids. ;D ;D ;D
But what about the EMP from the solar flare? :o :o :o
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Regular solar flares have caused communication and navigation problems as recently as last year. Coronal mass ejections are more worrisome. One in 1859 took out parts of the new US telegraph network, starting fires and scaring the crap out of some telegraph operators. The electronics we use today are much more sensitive than telegraph wires. A tiny fraction of that amount of energy could fry anything with a microchip, which is nearly every electronic device we use.
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I’m safe!
My creator said so...all these lefties here in the Northeast are screwed!
True dat.
The solar event headed this way isn't supposed to amount to very much.
https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/3-day-forecast (https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/3-day-forecast)
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Regular solar flares have caused communication and navigation problems as recently as last year. Coronal mass ejections are more worrisome. One in 1859 took out parts of the new US telegraph network, starting fires and scaring the crap out of some telegraph operators. The electronics we use today are much more sensitive than telegraph wires. A tiny fraction of that amount of energy could fry anything with a microchip, which is nearly every electronic device we use.
Yep. Want some fun, read the book series "Going Home" by the author A. American (short for Angry American),
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Yep. Want some fun, read the book series "Going Home" by the author A. American (short for Angry American),
I may check that out at some point. I still have enough books to keep me busy until next year at least, and more on the way. I was thinking this morning that if everything computerized got fried, but they eventually got the power grid up and running again, my toaster would still work. Not a whole lot more I can think of other than some power tools.
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And it's happening again.
On September 9, 2018, the near-Earth asteroid 2018 RC will come within 136,000 miles from the Earth’s surface, or about half the distance to the moon. The asteroid is about the size of a 20 story building and will come barrelling past Earth just after noon UTC on Sunday, September 9 - just five days after it was discovered. That's scary. If it was going to wipe out all life on Earth we wouldn't have known it even existed until we were 5 days away from dying.
The near-Earth asteroid 2018 RC, discovered by the ATLAS survey in Hawaii on September 3, 2018, and announced the next day by the Minor Planet Center, has an estimated diameter in the range of 100-230 feet. Just before its flyby, it will be visible with small (4 inch or larger) telescopes, as a 12th magnitude dot of light. At that brightness, it won't be visible to the eye alone. It will be around 8:00 AM so I wouldn't be up to see it anyway.
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Just after 7:00 AM Eastern Time, tomorrow.
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Watch online:
http://earthsky.org/space/watch-online-as-asteroid-2018-rc-sweeps-past
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Just after 7:00 AM Eastern Time, tomorrow.
I'm on Eastern Time, but it's Eastern Daylight Time, not Eastern Standard Time. It would be only be a 4 hour difference instead of 5 because of that stupid Daylight Saving Time. Don't they use Daylight Saving Time where you are? It should pass by shortly after 8:00 AM.
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We're still here so it must have missed us just like the one earlier this year.
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Naw, we got hit and splattered all over the place. Elon Musk said this isn't life....it's a simulation....so we're just being rerun in an alternate scenario. :o :o :o :o :o :o
No...really, the man said this reality that we enjoy is only a simulation.
I'm glad we didn't get splattered....and no, I don't think we are a simulation.
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You could be asleep and dreaming. When you wake up everything could be different.