Giant asteroid to pass close to Earth Tuesday

[Turborama]

Source: CNN

updated 2:28 AM EST, Tue November 8, 2011

- An asteroid the size of an aircraft carrier will pass Earth to within eight-tenths of the distance of the moon Tuesday, the closest approach to Earth of an object this size in more than 30 years.

The closest approach will occur at 6:28 p.m. ET when the asteroid passes within 202,000 miles of our planet, NASA said.

The space agency classified the asteroid as a "potentially hazardous object."

If the asteroid were to crash into Earth, it could cause a 4,000 megaton blast and a magnitude 7.0 earthquake, according to scientists at Purdue University. If it fell into the ocean, it could cause a 70-foot high tsunami within 60 miles of the crash site, the experts said.

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2011/11/08/us/asteroid-flyby/index.html?eref=mrss_igoogle_cnn

[dipsydoodle]

1. Duck just incase.

:)


:hi:

[yurbud]

23. and point all electric fans facing up

[DRoseDARs]

2. Absolutely irresponsible for CNN to say, "If the asteroid were to crash into Earth..."

The very next paragraph:
"However, the space rock, called Asteroid 2005 YU55, poses no threat of an Earth collision, according to NASA's Near Earth Object Program."

How many people will have read that far after having read what horrific damage it would do to the planet? How many people will CNN have needlessly sent into a panic?

[Pacifist Patriot]

9. Indeed. The article I read was extremely repetitive about how scientists are 100%...

certain Earth is completely safe. The article did relay the analogy (it was an actual quote from a NASA scientist), but was careful to explain it in terms of giving a frame of reference for size. But it was worded a little differently than CNN and surrounded by reassurances. It was as if the writer and editor, oh I don't know, were competent and understood mass human psychology. Can't remember where I stumbled upon it yesterday, but I was impressed with both the writing and editing.

[kentauros]

11. Fear sells, thus the use of the word "Giant" in the headline.

In my mind, a "giant asteroid" is measured in tens of kilometers, if not more, and not merely "the size of an aircraft carrier". I had to look the latter up, and a Nimitz class is about a third of a kilometer long. Hardly in the realm of "giant asteroid" but I guess it is to the ill-informed...

[N7Shepard]

17. Hate to be snarky but

the one that wiped out the dinosaurs wasn't even measured in tens of kilometers (if not more), unless you consider 1 "ten kilometer" to count. And that is quite possibly the biggest one ever to strike since life has been on Earth. There may have been one bigger that caused the P-Tr extinction event, but even then it was at the most about 20 km.

1/3 km is still pretty damn big. I don't know if I would call it giant, but when is the last individual rock you've seen as big as 1/3 km?

[kentauros]

19. My point stands: it still doesn't warrant being labeled "giant"

Plus, how much of that would ablate off on entry, depending on the angle? That alone determines a lot about the impact. All too often the media (as well as those "science" shows) assume a near-vertical impact. The other major factor in all of this is what's the thing made of? If it's dense, sure, then it's a problem. If it's ice, it's not going to be nearly the same kind of impact or problem.

Yes, 333 meters is big, but it's only 1/30th the diameter of a ten-kilometer asteroid (volume is more important and telling here as a 10,000m asteroid is 15,625x larger than this one, which after some research I found to be 400m in diameter; I figure you can do the volume math, too.) It's not that big and it wouldn't wipe out life or be an "extinction event". It might change things for a while, it might even counteract global warming, but it wouldn't wipe us out. It's not a "Giant asteroid".

[Xithras]

25. There's been some discussion that "extinction events" from asteroids may not be possible anyway....

They were at one time, but our sheer numbers may mean that we're now immune to that particular form of extinction. It's important to remember that even the Chicxulub impact didn't actually wipe out all of the dinosaurs, and that it now appears that some species may have lasted up to a million years past the impact event.

And those were dinosaurs, who were entirely dependent on their ecosystem for survival. We have nuclear power, fossil fuels, hydro fuels, greenhouses, and other technological resources to keep us alive. More importantly, we have NUMBERS. With 7 billion of us on this planet, even an impact capable of wiping out 99% of humanity would leave about 70 million survivors, which is more than enough to establish a stable society. In fact, that really just sets us back to about 1000 BC, when the Greek city states were rising, Egypt was a world power, and the Chinese emperors ruled the Orient. Population wise that would be a bit of a setback, but those population levels with modern technology would lead to a flourishing civilization.

[kentauros]

26. Good points

:)

[N7Shepard]

31. I never said it would be an extinction event, but even a

300m asteroid could eff things up just as bad as many other natural disasters on a local level.

I know it won't happen and I know volume is more important than diameter of the object, but IMO acting like that isn't a big rock and debatable to call giant.... meh.

[Nihil]

12. Maybe anyone who panics will learn to read the whole article next time?

> How many people will have read that far after having read what
> horrific damage it would do to the planet?

Like you said: it is the very next paragraph.
If you are reading something that has gripped your imagination,
do you drop it part-way into the piece or do you continue to read?


> How many people will CNN have needlessly sent into a panic?

No-one that matters.

Anyone who flies off into "a panic" on reading one snippet of an
article without even reading the following few lines of the same
piece deserves no "concern" ... they barely deserve oxygen ...

[anamandujano]

27. "There's your flyby, right there."

A line from Melancholia. Couldn't resist.

Meanwhile, I'm going to eat, drink and be merry tonight.

Edit to add--Last time I read it was the 9th which is Wednesday. So are we out of danger now? Disclosure--I have meltdowns seeing tornadoes on TV.

[liberal N proud]

13. They have to have their sensationalism

That is all the news networks live on.

[unblock]

21. why say "a town of 5,000" when you can say "if a nuke were dropped, 5,000 people would perish!"

they can do this in any situation.

"if the train were to derail, 1,500 people would be stranded!"


"this child, only weeks away from starving to death."


there story you can't spice up with a little death and sensationalism!

[malthaussen]

3. Good time to re-read

...Lucifer's Hammer.

-- Mal

[Delphinus]

6. Lo, these many years later,

I still remember that book! :)

[Stumbler]

14. Nice reference

I've still got a paperback copy on my bookshelf
:)

[HillWilliam]

36. Lucifer's Hammer

and Alas, Babylon. Two gottahaves. Better World Books is my go-to for out-of-prints. A portion of the purchase price goes toward literacy programs.

[SpiralHawk]

4. That's just when Squirmy Hermy has his newser

Coincidence, or occult Republicon darkside black ops disractory plot?

We speculate, you cogitate.

[onethatcares]

5. will it be visible to the naked eye?

and where is the best location for viewing?

I've seen meteor showers but this sounds a whole lot cooler.

[Celefin]

7. Nah, it's approaching with the sun behind it

not visible to the naked eye at all, regrettably.
You'll need a decent telescope and will have to wait for the very short moment when it's not entirely obfuscated by the sun's glare but still close enough to be visible despite being such a dim object. And describing an 'aircraft carrier' sized chunk of rock as 'giant' is a bit silly compared to the size of your average comet.

[JHB]

8. Not visible to the naked eye

According to some hasty calculations, it'd be about 1/10,000 the the size of a full moon. It'd have to be pretty reflective to be visible at that size, and that doesn't seem to be the case.

A quick search turns up:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45192692/ns/technology_and_science-space/

During its closest approach to Earth, asteroid 2005 YU55 will not be visible to the naked eye, and Fisher said that skywatchers will need a telescope with at least a 6-inch mirror to see it.

"It turns out that YU55 is going to be pretty faint when it flies by," he explained. "To make it even more difficult to observe … it will be moving VERY quickly across the sky as it passes."

"The best time to observe it would be in the early evening on Nov. 8th from the east coast of the US," Fisher said. "However! It is going to be VERY faint, even at its closest approach. You will need a decent sized telescope to be able to actually see the object as it flies by."

[Pacifist Patriot]

10. No, in fact the article I read yesterday mentioned amateurs would need...

at least a 6" lens on their telescope AND would have to know exactly where to look.

[onethatcares]

34. many thanks for the replies.

I was hoping to get a glimpse of something that awesome.

[jakeXT]

15. flight path

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-343&rn=news.xml&rst=3191

[RoccoR5955]

16. Relatively speaking, that's a teeny, tiny asteroid.

There are many quite larger than this one.

[N7Shepard]

18. Yet not that it would hit but still would cause quite a bit of damage if it did (obv). When is the

last time we got hit by one that big? That one in siberia 100 years ago was only about ~50m

[kentauros]

20. And how big was Mt. St. Helens when it blew up?

We have more to worry from terrestrial events than extra-terrestrial events like this.

[freshwest]

22. It was quite horrific overall.

[N7Shepard]

32. In what sense? Probability wise, yes. But if we happen to be unlikely to

get hit by a big asteroid in our lifetime it will be worse than any volcano, flood, earthquake, GW, etc.

[Xithras]

24. For what it's worth...

A 400m asteroid would blow a hole about 2.5 miles wide in whatever it hit. That's pretty nasty if you're at ground zero, but you're only talking about a loud bang and maybe a broken window or two if you were 100 miles away. The Earth is a 7900 mile wide bullseye, so even if you lose the 50/50 coin flip and are on the side of the planet that takes the impact, the odds that you'd personally be harmed are extremely small.

The damage would be severe, but it would be localized.

[Ter]

28. Yeah, but nothing cataclysmic

Not on extinction level at least.

[NoodleyAppendage]

29. No risk today, but what about any deviation our gravitational field may exert?

Me thinks they are so concerned about mapping the features of this asteroid, because we may need to figure out where to attach the rockets to move it out of orbit before its next pass at Earth.

[anamandujano]

30. Thanks, I was just considering exhaling.

:donut:

[jakeXT]

33. live show

http://events.slooh.com/

[freshwest]

35. Not to worry. Some day 'we'll all go together' into the sweet bye and bye. That's fair. LOL.