2003qq47!

[FDRrocks]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/spacedocumentary/story/0,2763,1034197,00.html

Okay, it's a long shot asteroid. But I mean, the general odds for ANY asteroid hitting the earth are less than a million to one!!! An asteroid will hit this earth before you win the lottery, folks. :(

Heres my question: Do you think in the event of an asteroid headed straight for us, the powers that be in this world will be able to suck it up enough to work together to build a reliable defense.

This asteroid, 1/10 the size of the one that killed the dinosaurs, has the power of 20 million nuclear bombs.

Maybe I am paranoid. Everyone has to go sometime. This race will have to go sometime, I imagine. But I DO NOT want to be killed because a huge rock smashed into it.

I imagined something like that would have all sorts of reprecussions, possibly throwing off the orbit of the earth?

Whaddadillyo?

[Ivory_Tower]

1. It won't affect the Earth's orbit

Too small for that. So at least we have THAT going for us. :)

I don't know what leaders would do in this situation -- I'm afraid some would say "1,000-to-1? I *like* those odds!" But I'm hoping they'd work together to save the planet. Their track record so far, however, has not been encouraging.

btw, this came up in a different thread a while back, and some of us (well, me at least) wondered if some End-Timers would welcome the news and actively try to prevent us from avoiding an impact. (Turns out there was already a movie using that general idea, so I lost my creativity points.)

But overall, the odds of being killed by an asteroid impact are probably higher than, say, getting struck by lightning, so I wouldn't lose sleep over it -- unless there's a thunderstorm nearby.

[Birthmark]

2. It's going to miss.

Further analysis of the orbit has determined we're safe from this one. I'll see if I can find a link. The media always goes nuts with this stuff.

[FDRrocks]

3. I figured as much...

The odds aren't great. But my question was more of a speculative one. Like a "What If", deal.

Space scares me. :(

[Ivory_Tower]

4. Space is beautiful

but extremely humbling....

[Birthmark]

5. Here ya go:

"Absolute Magnitude (H) 17.196
Slope parameter (G) 0.15
Perihelion (AU) 0.8822
Aphelion (AU) 1.2882
Asc. node-Earth sep. (AU) 0.09783
Desc. node-Earth sep. (AU) 0.00374
th MOID (AU) 0.00367
Orbital period (days) 412.917
Date of orbit computation Sep 20 10:06"
http://newton.dm.unipi.it/cgi-bin/neodys/neoibo?quicksearch:0;search

I make closest approach 340,000+ miles. Close, but no impact.