Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Science Another Day
Posted by Charles Mudede on Tue, Mar 3, 2009 at 4:38 PM
An asteroid which may be as big as a ten-storey building has passed close by the Earth, astronomers say.Only on Saturday? A space object of that size can only be detected a few days before it nearly kills millions of people? I will not sleep tonight.The object, known as 2009 DD45, thought to be 21-47m (68-152ft) across, raced by our planet at 1344 GMT on Monday.
The gap was just 72,000 km (44,750 miles); a fifth of the distance between our planet and the Moon.
It is in the same size range as a rock which exploded over Siberia in 1908 with the force of 1,000 atomic bombs.
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5
It's less than 100 feet in diameter, and was 983 million miles away when it was spotted. Amazing that it was sighted at all.
6
@4: 666 is just as good a number, since the article talks about 10-15 megatonnes as a reference range. Oh, never mind; they didn't even have atomic bombs back in 1908, so the Hiroshima comparison they used is irrelevant .
8
Charles dear, relax. When your number is up, your number is up. In the meantime, the sun will rise and the moon will set and you'll learn how to settle for what you get.
Personally, I'd much rather not know anything about the asteroid from hell until the sun dimmed, I looked up at the sky, and said "What the fuc...."
And that would be that. Vastly preferable to a million other kinds of endings I could conjure up.
Personally, I'd much rather not know anything about the asteroid from hell until the sun dimmed, I looked up at the sky, and said "What the fuc...."
And that would be that. Vastly preferable to a million other kinds of endings I could conjure up.
9
If that asteroid had hit the earth it would have sent enough dust into the atmosphere to stop global warming.....
and we could burn all the oil we want. Everyone could have bought Hummers and fixed the economy, too.
DAMN ASTEROID! NEXT TIME HIT THE EARTH!
and we could burn all the oil we want. Everyone could have bought Hummers and fixed the economy, too.
DAMN ASTEROID! NEXT TIME HIT THE EARTH!
10
Space is big, Chuckles. We can't see everything in it, especially small, fast, dark things like this small, fast, dark rock. You're just going to have to deal, somehow.
11
It would be worse is if we could detect it earlier. Our best bet for moving an asteroid out of a collision course with Earth would have to start at least 20 years in advance.
13
21-47m is nowhere near big enough to cause global winter, though if it hit in an ocean any surrounding seaboard would get very wet.
Hit near Hawaii, for instance, and you'd get 20-50m breaking waves at La Push. The Juan de Fuca would break up the wave energy and you'd probably see just a few meters at the ferry terminal.
Land strike, you're probably talking thermal and concussive destruction 30-50km from impact but pretty much nothing else.
This is the size of the rock that formed Meteor Crater in Arizona, for comparison.
Hit near Hawaii, for instance, and you'd get 20-50m breaking waves at La Push. The Juan de Fuca would break up the wave energy and you'd probably see just a few meters at the ferry terminal.
Land strike, you're probably talking thermal and concussive destruction 30-50km from impact but pretty much nothing else.
This is the size of the rock that formed Meteor Crater in Arizona, for comparison.
14
1) already posted to your own blog; please go hang your head in embarrassment
2) scientific pop bullshit that you're spouting; please read some actual scientific literature before you post
2) scientific pop bullshit that you're spouting; please read some actual scientific literature before you post
15
i wonder how the asteroid feels knowing it came so close to gettin some Packer fan ass.
Probably crafting some hopeless "I Saw You" ad right now while spilling a glass of Svedka and Sprite across a well worn copy of Twillight of the Idols...
no, the asteroid will not sleep tonight, not this night...
Probably crafting some hopeless "I Saw You" ad right now while spilling a glass of Svedka and Sprite across a well worn copy of Twillight of the Idols...
no, the asteroid will not sleep tonight, not this night...
18
It seems these things collide with earth more often than I thought. If they have been hitting oceans seventy percent of the time, there would be less evidence of this.
19
Earth's surface would be everywhere riddled w/ overlapping craters like the moon's is, but for plate tectonics, plants, weather and the atmosphere's effect on incoming meteors themselves. (Not necessarily in order.)
What should give us pause, Mr. Mudede, is that the Seattle Fault is 1,100 years *overdue* for a Magnitude 9 earthquake, going by the geologic record of past seismic events. And this fault goes right through downtown. Bay Areans got nothing on this. We live IN the bear trap.
What should give us pause, Mr. Mudede, is that the Seattle Fault is 1,100 years *overdue* for a Magnitude 9 earthquake, going by the geologic record of past seismic events. And this fault goes right through downtown. Bay Areans got nothing on this. We live IN the bear trap.
20
Charles, the asteroid would have to be much, much larger than your ego to do any appreciable damage.
This one doesn't appear to be even close to that size.
This one doesn't appear to be even close to that size.
21
@19- ummm, what? Are you confusing the Seattle Fault, which is a relatively small surface fault "only" capable of Mag 7 quakes, with the Cascadia Subduction Fault, which *is* capable of Mag 9-10 quakes? The Cascadia is due in ~100-200yrs, though it could happen tomorrow.
A Seattle Fault quake would probably cause more intense local damage from Bainbridge to Issaquah. A Cascadia would produce minutes of relatively low mag (.25-.35g) shaking from BC to possibly Northern California, with resulting tsunamis.
A Seattle Fault quake would probably cause more intense local damage from Bainbridge to Issaquah. A Cascadia would produce minutes of relatively low mag (.25-.35g) shaking from BC to possibly Northern California, with resulting tsunamis.
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