- Wednesday, 25 November 2009
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The future is here. It's just not widely distributed yet - WIlliam Gibson
Big asteroid approaches Earth, Tuesday
AN ASTEROID measuring around 250 metres across will come within 1.4 moon-distances of the Earth on Tuesday next, at around 8.33am. But it will not cause earthly havoc, death and destruction, scientists guaranteed.
It'll be the biggest asteroid to come that close in twenty years. Named 2007 TU24, the object has been tracked by Nasa since first spotted in October last year. Which isn't that long ago if you think about it.
There is another asteroid heading for Mars on Wednesday next, a fact which is causing all sorts of panic on www.Davidicke.com, strapline: “exposing the dream world we believe to be real” (did he steal that from the INQ?) where the heads are taking it as some sort of sign.
Yes, it is a sign that the solar system is made up of a star, several large gas planets, rocky planets and moons and millions and millions of smaller rocks called asteroids.
Qualified sky watcher Steve Ostro, who works at the Near Earth Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory has been keeping his eye Asteroid number 2007 TU24. He told New Scientist: “We can absolutely guarantee that there’s zero chance of any hazardous close approaches to earth until 2170.“ So that's all right then.
Watch the skies. µ
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Steve Ostro may well be right as regards asteroids and other bodies in nice regular orbits near the Sun. When it comes to comets and other extraneous chunks of crap that whiz in and out of the Solar System as the mood takes them, all bets are off. See, for example, the classic "Lucifer's Hammer" by Niven and Pournelle. (OK, a piece of ice and rock way out beyond Pluto gets snagged by the gravity of a larger body, which has the effect of making it fall in towards the Sun. Its trajectory just happens to intersect the Earth). We'd get a few months' notice if we were lucky, maybe only weeks.
If they only discovered this one in October 2007 how can they be sure there are no more until 2170 at the earliest? Have they recently drastically increased the quality/capabilities of their equipment?
> We can absolutely guarantee that
> there’s zero chance of any hazardous
> close approaches to earth until 2170.

That's a pretty lofty statement. Do we get our money back if he's wrong?
If you read the linked article, the scientist was only speaking about 2007 TU24, not all asteroids. In fact, he states we've only found about 20% of the NEO asteroids of this size. Yes, scientific hubris should be feared, but what should be feared here is the slow pace of the mapping of NEO asteroids. Hazard or opportunity? A 250m diameter nickle-iron asteroid would have more than 50 million tonnes of metal, about the mass of 500 aircraft carriers.
I want it to hit a Japanese Whaling ship !!!

Divine intervention.
Once again the 'cult of science' has revealed it's condesending attitude towards truth. They are determined to have us believe that they know everything there is to know and the rest of us just need to take their word for it. Well, we're not that stupid. We can see for ourselves that our universe is dynamic and unpredictable and that we haven't even begun to grasp it's complexity.

"Knowledge has three degrees: opinion, science, illumination. The means or instrument of the first is sense; of the second dialectic; of the third, intuition."
Plotinus, Letter to Flaccus 
This is why we've needed a good way to clear up all those pesky rocks floating around in our otherwise-quite-tidy solar system.

I suggest some sort of...triangular spaceship. With a laser on the front. And perhaps the ability to dip in and out of hyperspace.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroids_(arcade_game)
As far as I am aware of current earth research only covers about 10% of the ski. I dont know how valid that number is but if that is the case i dont think we can trust in that statement and the person making it.
it's not all that ominous!

it all depends on where any asteroid might eventually crash hehe

i bit of mental pragmatism never physically killed anyone :)

that said, if all fails, we can always depend on Bruce Willis.

Asteroid 99942 Apophis (2004 MN4) will come within 3 earth diameters (one tenth the distance to the moon, closer than our communication satellites) on April 13th 2029. The 400 meter asteroid will be close enough for the earth to affect its orbit and easily seen with the naked eye. If it passes just the right point then it will hit the Earth 7 years later on April 13th 2036. Right now there is a 1 in 5560 chance of a collision with earth in 2036, we will know almost for sure the next time the asteroid comes around in 2013. Read more at www.universetoday.com/2005/08/22/asteroid-close-call-will-be-a-gain-for-science/

Cheers!
The talk about this asteroid is happening since long time

visit
http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message487311/pg91
for more details

also visit www.tu24.org for more discusiions and info
The anomolus report can cause havoc and carnage