Astronomers discover a massive asteroid that could hit us in 2032
George Dvorsky, io9, 17 October 2013 (hat tip: Big Picture)
Mark August 26th, 2032 on your calendar, folks. Ukrainian astronomers have just detected a 1,350-foot-wide (410 meter) minor planet that’s headed our way. The impact risk is minimal, but it’s now the most serious near-term celestial threat to face our planet.
As one commenter noted, that even a blast 50 times larger than the largest nuclear explosion set off (2,500 megatons) it is not an extinction event. Unless it happens to hit near you. As to the likely hood of it actually hitting the earth:
think [of it as a] grain of powder that will be at 10 meters from a mosquito as "almost hitting it", it will pass at almost 20 times the distance from earth to the moon.
3 comments:
The lesson I took away from the Russian impact ( a few months ago? Time flies waiting for the apocalypse )was that any ELE size rock hitting us WON'T be seen prior to landing because the guberment people in charge of that will be taking the day off, one of many federal holidays or furloughs as the feds shut down every three months.
Hmmmm a strike in the Pacific washing away Kalifornia takes on a whole new perspective today though.
James: Best I can tell the Russian that air burst over Chelyabinsk was around 12,000 tons. When you consider how heavy rock and earth are (one cubic yard of soil weighs almost 1.5 tons), 12,000 tons is not supper huge. It was the airburst's shock wave that did the most damage.
Pioneer: Yes, California still has its fans, but it is not the economic Mecca that it was post-WW2. A lot of my family moved their in the 60s.
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