End of the World Almost Came Yesterday

by Satanus 17 Replies latest social current

• 

  Satanus

  Isn't it great that there wasn't a big hullabaloo about it before hand? It was an asteroid that passed by earth yesterday. It came as close as 4 times the distance to the moon, which is fairly close, galactically speaking.

  Had Toutatis hit the Earth, it would have had the explosive impact of a one million megaton bomb, many times the total nuclear arsenal of the superpowers, and destroyed all life on the planet. But it's closeness is relative - it remained a little less than a million miles away.

  whizzed past at roughly four times the distance between the Earth and the Moon, precisely as astronomers had expected.

  Named after an obscure Celtic and Gallic god - whose name was then picked by the writers of the Asterix cartoon as an expletive - the asteroid measures 4.6 kilometres (2.9 miles) by 2.29 kilometres by 1.92 kilometres

  http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/story.jsp?story=567191

  Maybe i too should be using toutatis as a swear word. Swear words need letters that let you expel air.

  S
• 

  heathen

  cool .............
• 

  Stephanus

  Maybe i too should using toutatis as a swear word.

  Then you'd be doing it wrong. In the Asterix comics, the phrase used is always ",by Toutatis!".
• 

  Xandria

  By Toutatis' or is it Toutatis's Balls or is that Ball? Of the I'm to confused to swear right, right now.

  X. lol
• 

  Big Tex

  I read this earlier. Interesting possibilities. Now one thing I'm not sure about is if it takes 4 years on an uneven orbit, doesn't that raise the possibility of a potential collision later?
• 

  Satanus

  Stephanus

  Thanks. I wanna swear like a proper viking.

  Bigtex

  The article said that they know where toutatis is going, and there is nothing to worry about. It said something about it not showing up for another 180 yrs, or something like that. It said that other smaller ones might be a worry, because they can't detect them very well. But britain and perhaps the usa are getting spurred on developing a program to deal w asteroids.

  S
• 

  heathen

  I did read some of the article and just got a laugh at how the scientists want government money to track asteroids . Just the WTF you plan on doing if one is headed straight to the earth anyway ? This has been going on for billions of years and earth has survived some pretty big hits in the past without scientists tracking it .
• 

  candidlynuts

  naw the big one is coming in 2014.. this story is from 2003 .i saved it.. notice the chances of this hitting earth are GREATER than you ever winning the powerball lottery lmao IT COULD HAPPEN!

  LONDON, England (Reuters) -- A giant asteroid is heading for Earth and could hit in 2014, U.S. astronomers have warned British space monitors.

  But for those fearing Armageddon, don't be alarmed -- the chances of a catastrophic collision are just one in 909,000.

  Asteroid "2003 QQ47" will be closely monitored over the next two months. Its potential strike date is March 21, 2014, but astronomers say that any risk of impact is likely to decrease as further data is gathered.

  On impact, it could have the effect of 20 million Hiroshima atomic bombs, a spokesman for the British government's Near Earth Object Information Centre told BBC radio.

  The Centre issued the warning about the asteroid after the giant rock was first observed in New Mexico by the Lincoln Near Earth Asteroid Research Program.

  "The Near Earth Object will be observable from Earth for the next two months and astronomers will continue to track it over this period," said Dr Alan Fitzsimmons, one of the expert team advising the Centre.

  Asteroids such as 2003 QQ47 are chunks of rock left over from the formation of the solar system 4.5 billion years ago. Most are kept at a safe distance from the Earth in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

  But the gravitational influence of giant planets such as Jupiter can nudge asteroids out of these safe orbits and send them plunging towards Earth.
• 

  heathen

  Like warning people about is going to make a difference ? We are dealing with the end of the world and civilization all the time from lunatics on the planet . I don't need asteroids to make me concerned about the mortality rate .
• 

  Satanus

  Actually, warning people about a big thing like this would be worse. After all, what can the average person do? Worldwide pandemonium would break out. Better to let people carry on as usual until the end.

  S