We  know about the Siberian impact of the early 20th Century.

We know that just a yr or so ago, a large asteroid passed by the Earth,  within the Moon's orbit.  CLOSE CALL, astronomically speaking.!!

NOW we know that an asteroid,  first noticed in 2012....  !!!!  is about to pass us within the next week. !!!

THIS one is tracked and predicted to pass by the Earth, inside the range of our satellites!!.

And YES ..Humans  ... we only picked it out last yr, from the spacial background.

I'm with Light... 
we are mere atoms, in this Cosmos,
and maybe loud music is our only practical response.

 

The moon is apparently pockmarked and asteroids hit the earth a lot too but we have been here there have been few. It has to happen sometime hey. The atmosphere protects us somewhat from the smaller ones because they burn up.

SOB

Don't worry, guys. If an asteroid really was going to hit us I pretty sure NASA has a plan involving sending a dozen roughnecks to intercept it after just a few days of training them, and they'll be fine even though it usually takes years of training GeForce an astronaut is even considered for a seat on a mission. We've probably have the prototype spacecraft they need out at Area 51 or someshit so we can loft the oilworkers, a couple of hand built, never been tested outside of a lab drills, and a pair of multimegaton class thermonuclear weapons on like two weeks notice. Probably get that down to a week notice if we can find a smokin' hot betty whose dad is the singer of an iconic rock group to boink the secondary team lead.  There's probably gonna be a metric f*ckload of US flags that'll need to get waved in order to provide extra lift to the rockets or something...

No, wait. That's the plot to Armageddon.

Crapageddon more like it  ;D

The alternate plan calls for the emergency election of Morgan Freeman to President followed a multiyear black bag project to covertly build a 500m long starship that's main drive works by exploding thermonuclear weapons and riding the shockwave. Despite being built in Low Earth Orbit no one will notice an orbital construction project involving the combined space agencies of every nation on earth, until a relatively unknown reporter stumbles across it while trying to catch the secretary of state schtuping his secretary. Despite trillions of dollars and hundreds of millions of man-hours devoted to the project half the object the ship was sent to intercept and destroy makes it to Earth and utterly ruins the poo of everyone with in 100km of an Atlantic coastline.

We call this "Operation: Jerry Bruckheimer was already contracted to direct the other plan."

Emma wrote on Feb 12^th, 2013 at 1:30am:

We  know about the Siberian impact of the early 20th Century. We know that just a yr or so ago, a large asteroid passed by the Earth,  within the Moon's orbit.  CLOSE CALL, astronomically speaking.!! NOW we know that an asteroid,  first noticed in 2012....  !!!!  is about to pass us within the next week. !!! THIS one is tracked and predicted to pass by the Earth, inside the range of our satellites!!. And YES ..Humans  ... we only picked it out last yr, from the spacial background. I'm with Light...  we are mere atoms, in this Cosmos, and maybe loud music is our only practical response.

An asteroid could hit the earth at any moment & wipe out all human civilisation.
Still - that is very unlikely to happen in anyone's lifetime.
I think we get a large hit about every 60 million years.

Fun Fact: The my annual departmental travel budget is about eight times the size of the budget NASA allocates to Near Earth Object detection.

Fun Fact II: Even if NASA increased that budget by an order of magnitude and mapped out every object in the solar system from the Sun's corona to the Kyper Belt there's f*ck all we could to intercept and destroy/divert an object we confirmed as heading for Earth. Even with a two decade heads up there isn't really anything we could do.

Quote:

The moon is apparently pockmarked and asteroids hit the earth a lot too but we have been here there have been few. It has to happen sometime hey. The atmosphere protects us somewhat from the smaller ones because they burn up. SOB

A. Has the presence of the moon through the ages meant that the Earth was...

1.less exposed to meteoroid impact (because they hit the moon instead or were subject to the slingshot effect of the moon's gravity),

2. more exposed (because of the larger gravitational target)
or

3. There was no net difference because the two effects cancelled out.

In your answer, take into account that the Moon's orbit  has gradually drifted away further from the Earth and that the numbers of meteoroids decreased dramatically in the first billion years of the solar system.

B. Develop an iterative, multi-variable hillclimbing based  algorithm to demonstrate that the meaning of life is actually 42.

(Show all calculations)   ;D

The difference would be negligible.

That's what I think too, yet for a while a few astronomers were claiming that the presence of the moon resulted in more cometary impacts in the early solar system and was largely responsible for the thickness of the Earth's atmosphere today. (from comet captures and collisions).

The gravitational profile was also greater when the moon was closer to the Earth, which happened to be at the time when cometary collisions were more likely. In other words, the Earth and Moon acted as a more effective comet catching system when they were closer together.
 
This brings us to the fact that early comets had a central heating system powered by Aluminium 26. So we have comets containing methane, carbon dioxide and  possibly liquid water together with a radiogenic heat source which could produce large combinations of organic chemicals.

In other words  - were comets the seeds of life?

An interestng thought at least.

muso wrote on Feb 12^th, 2013 at 8:58pm:

That's what I think too, yet for a while a few astronomers were claiming that the presence of the moon resulted in more cometary impacts in the early solar system and was largely responsible for the thickness of the Earth's atmosphere today. (from comet captures and collisions). The gravitational profile was also greater when the moon was closer to the Earth, which happened to be at the time when cometary collisions were more likely. In other words, the Earth and Moon acted as a more effective comet catching system when they were closer together.

Hi Muso,
That would be true.
The constant changing of the gravitational pull - a disturbance -
would cause greater deviation of asteroid & comet paths
meaning that although a strike would not hit immediately an asteroid or comet could be put off it's usual safe course
& end up on a collision course with earth -  many orbits later.

perhaps the Earth is somewhat protected from meteors and asteroids , by the presence of the Moon ..as you 've commented,  different gravitic forces are at play..

But there is plain evidence, all over Earth that shows some truly massive impacts in the past.

The Australia continent presents a fascinating picture of past strikes.

I read a particularly riveting article in Australian Geographic,  within the last yr or so,.. which mapped our most significant impact sites,  and when they occurred.

Fascinating... Humbling... 

Worth checking out.

Yes Emma,
have a look at all the Australian & other asteroid craters:

https://www.google.com.au/search?q=asteroid+crater+australia&hl=en&tbo=u&tbm=isch&source=univ&sa=X&ei=sC0aUY7lIsbAmQW-w4D4BA&sqi=2&ved=0CDoQsAQ&biw=1270&bih=879

Bobby??

I don't think you can compare an asteroid with a comet,  in the context of orbit.

an asteroid or comet could be put off it's usual safe course
& end up on a collision course with earth -  many orbits later.

I may be wrong,  but just off the top of my head.... 

Comets are known to be on basically elliptical orbits,..... but not around Earth..

Their transit has nothing to do with Earth. We just happen to be on the way.

Asteroids, big and small,  captured in the belts that surround planets in our system...  may degenerate over time..and go down the gravitational well...   but it'd take a long time.!! Our science should be up to noticing these  ..hopefully.

but I don't think the Asteroids we are talking about have any orbit based on Earth. Have they?

Aren't they  the 'free radicals' of the perceivable universe??

and as a part of the swirling galactic arm that includes the Milky Way...  :)

is not our outpost moving closer to an area of much denser matter..eg asteroids... 

I KNOW I'm talking galactic time......  but sooner or later.. if we continue to exist,... this will present a much greater danger to our civilisation.

If WE are now just approaching that area of space ...who can say how much more frequent this 'missed by a whisker' event will be.??

Definitely food for thought.

..

Hi Emma,
it doesn't matter if it's an asteroid or a comet -
it's orbit can be disturbed unevenly by an Earth/Moon system.

I don't think we're moving closer to any belt of asteroids.

no  I don't me WE.. as in Earth... but as the Milky Way We are in a spiral galaxy, which is moving at incalculable speed..  ( for me)  and our spiral arm IS moving closer to denser space.

OOhhhh so .. I thought when you said orbit,  you meant Earth orbit.

muso wrote on Feb 12^th, 2013 at 6:34pm:

Quote: The moon is apparently pockmarked and asteroids hit the earth a lot too but we have been here there have been few. It has to happen sometime hey. The atmosphere protects us somewhat from the smaller ones because they burn up. SOB A. Has the presence of the moon through the ages meant that the Earth was... 1.less exposed to meteoroid impact (because they hit the moon instead or were subject to the slingshot effect of the moon's gravity), 2. more exposed (because of the larger gravitational target) or 3. There was no net difference because the two effects cancelled out. In your answer, take into account that the Moon's orbit  has gradually drifted away further from the Earth and that the numbers of meteoroids decreased dramatically in the first billion years of the solar system. B. Develop an iterative, multi-variable hillclimbing based  algorithm to demonstrate that the meaning of life is actually 42. (Show all calculations)   ;D

I dont know since Im not an astronomer. Some lesson @ school had something to do with the atmosphere burning up the asteroids. We have had just as many as the moon over the eons though apparently. It was a long time ago. Go look it up yourself if you are interested.

In fact i have thought about going back to uni and doing astronomy but its too expensive and i got put off when my telescope was stolen. Its prolly too much math anyway.

SOB

Well meteors are just wee  asteroids aren't they?

Quite a wake up show over Russia....  and we have Light telling us there have been others reported ... CUBA..   and >?? 

you read it.. its quite interesting... wonder if the stat news shows it.??

but its certain we live in interesting times.   :)

Emma wrote on Feb 17^th, 2013 at 1:45am:

Well meteors are just wee  asteroids aren't they?

They're both different words for the same thing. The only difference is where you find them. All asteroids are in space and they only become a meteor if they enter the atmosphere of another object. If the meteor survives atmospheric friction and hits the surface it becomes a meteorite.

If an asteroid such as 2012 .AD104  or whatever it 's nomenclature..  entered our atmosphere....

It would still be an Asteroid.. 

not a meteor or meteorite... 

of course it'd be unlikely that anyone would care to argue about it..! :D


True story.....
I saw a meteorite come in once... close up... well close enough.!

I'll never forget it.

AWESOME POWER.!!  We were all looking at the sky... jaw dropped..!

It came down over SEQ back in hmm ..late 70's early 80's..?..

It was dark...  evening in other words..

We were in a vehicle heading NW from Labrador...back in the days when it was all swamp land till you got to the old Pacific highway....  towards where Helensvale is today. No Gaven Way then.

There were sheoaks and old bush on the small rises before entering the flat stuff.... and the sky lit up.! as we came over them, 

The clouds seem to roil in  light patterns, fast...   and everything lit up around us, ...  almost like daylight. ! Shadows sped by.. sound seemed suspended....except for an incipient roar..
The clouds showing the path ... I looked  up and saw this huge ball of fire and light, with brilliant tail..  streaking across the sky above us.. heading Longreach way.

It lasted less than 15 seconds ..(estimate in hindsight) ...

but I will always remember the feelings it aroused in my breast.!!

The sense of the hugeness of the Universe... and my smallness.


Everyone should see something like that.

Emma wrote on Feb 17^th, 2013 at 11:52pm:

If an asteroid such as 2012 .AD104  or whatever it 's nomenclature..  entered our atmosphere.... It would still be an Asteroid..  not a meteor or meteorite...

Yeah, the entire astronomy community says you are wrong.

Emma wrote on Feb 17^th, 2013 at 11:52pm:

Everyone should see something like that.

Is that what ppl call a "shooting star"?

SOB

Sir Spot of Borg wrote on Feb 18^th, 2013 at 4:43am:

Is that what ppl call a "shooting star"? SOB

No thats John Lennon.

OK CHARD.... 
it's a truly huge meteorite.  Apologies...


no way is it like a shooting star... SOB

it looked like it was almost touchable it was so big.


Shooting stars are much smaller pieces of space rock called a meteoroid... burning up quickly as they enter the atmosphere.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-4UscQnRg0

2/15/2013 -- Florida Meteor lights up the sky

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/50843785/ns/local_news-miami_fl/#.USHXnmee7jL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLpTOc1i8_8

Shooting Star (Meteor) across San Francisco 2/15/2013 7:44PM ORIGINAL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JA8x8X98Ao

Shining object crosses the sky of Washington DC - 02.15.13 - Connected to Russian meteor?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlCa7WCnKDE

METEOR NEWS UPDATE - Meteors over Russia - New Orleans - San Francisco

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLEl18ShcWE

Published on Feb 16, 2013
meteor cuba russia japan san francisco meteorite fireball video | An object fell from the sky over central Cuba on Thursday night and turned into a fireball "bigger than the sun" before it exploded, a Cuban TV channel reported Friday, citing eyewitnesses.

Some residents in the central province of Cienfuegos were quoted as saying that at around 8 p.m. local time Thursday (0100 GMT Friday) they saw a bright spot in the sky comparable to a bus in size, China's Xinhua news agency reported citing the Cuban TV station.

The object then turned into a fireball "bigger than the sun," said the witnesses, adding that several minutes later they heard a loud explosion.

One resident told the TV station that his house shook slightly in the blast.

Cuban experts have been dispatched to the area to look for possible remains of the meteor-like object, said the report.

It remains unknown whether the reported phenomenon in Cuba is related to Friday's meteor strike in central Russia, which set off a shockwave that shattered windows and left some 1,000 people injured


Read more: Suspected meteor explosion reported in central Cuba - Latest - New Straits Times http://www.nst.com.my/latest/suspecte...
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be at peace

all is well

namaste

yep


its allllll good.