Now heres some scarey stuff. http://www.rense.com/general50/sep29th2004.htm Use this NASA orbit Silmulator & plug in the date Sept 29, 2004. Its not good http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/db?name=4179 Might want to read Arthur C Clarke's LUCIFER'S HAMMER or rent ARMAGEDDON or DEEP IMPACT for an idea of what Could happen Worst thing is we have the technology to do something about this but our leaders care more about getting themselves Re-elected than they do about the welfare of the planet. This thing is 3 MILES LONG !!!!! Thats got to equal an explosion WAY beyond Hiroshima If it hits. We're all going to have a bad hair day Sept 29 if the worst happens. I suggest you figure out what you want to do before you die & get it done before then
"On September 29th this year a 3 mile long asteroid will make the closest predicted approach of any asteroid or comet to Earth during the next 30 years, say scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory Near-Earth Orbiting Programme Office*. They predict the asteroid will come within 963,000 miles of Earth..................a very near miss." 2004 FH just came within 26,500 miles of the Earth's surface on March 18. I'll be keeping my stock.
2004FH was just a baby, less than 100yards long. probably would have burnt up in the atmosphere or left a medium sized expolosion somewhere. This thing is a Friggin Monster , 3 MILES LONG !!!!! That would leave a Serious bruise. When are these idiot politicians going to do something to secure us from this menace ? 65 Million years ago an Asteroid impacted Earth & wiped out the ruling species in a Nuclear winter. We say Dinosaurs were dumb because they had massive bodies & brains the size of walnuts. What will the next intelligent Earth species say about us ? " Those Humans were so foolish, They were smart & they had great technology but they were so busy killing or stealing from each other that they didnt bother to prevent their own extinction." That sounds dumber than a Dinosaur
"better to burn out than fade away" of course the sun will expand on day and swallow....... well almost the whole solar system.......... not that any of us will be around.... but our words will be frozen in time on FerrariChat until then!!!!! thanks Rob!!!!
I totally agree about the size. I don't want that behemoth dropping on me, that's for sure! My point is about the closeness. 2004 FH may have been small, but it came REALLY close. SUPER close. This guy is huge, but in terms of just how close it'll come, it's still far away. ...but you can point and laugh come september.
William, others, this thing really looks very interesting! I'd like to point out that most all regularly re-occurring events on earth with long periodicity (ice ages, mass extinctions of biomass) are driven by cosmic impacts. As a matter of fact, the frequency of these impacts is not constant, but varies (periodically) over time, and as such is controlled by the orbit parameters of the earth (which are slowly changing) and the suns position in the Milky Way. For example, ice age patterns are periodic and seem to correllate with the earth orbit inclination w.r.t the ecliptic plane. It appears that right now we are far out of the ecliptic plane, but will get ready to re-enter it, and pick up more debris and space "dirt" when we do, leading to gradually decreasing temperatures. In addition, mass extinctions occur with a fairly regular rythm and are caused by cosmic impacts. This impacts seem to peak every 30 million years or so, which means that during those times earth is exposed to a massive onslaught of cosmic bodies with varying sizes. If a 3 mile size object would hit, it would lead to the elimination of more than 90% of biomass on the earth, and a dramatic drop of temperature over several YEARs. In my opinion, this (and future ice ages) are the largest threats to the survival of mankind, and should be addressed. I agree that the technology to detect and derail these objects needs to be advanced with the highest possible priority!!!
If it doesnt hit then we should take advantage of this great opportunity to send probes to it & maybe some robots to do some test mining on it. A rock this size must be worth $$$ Billions in mineral respources, maybe Gold, Platinum, silver, exotic minerals, maybe even a little frozen water If it were up to me I'd send a crew up there with mining equipment to start strip mining it with robots . Its probably thick enough that you could set up a nice cozy building inside it to live in. It would make a Great & Cheap spacecraft. We could line it with probes while its near Earth so it can send data back to Earth as it rides around the solar system. Or we could set up a habitat on it & have our first real space colony or we could attempt to strap some engines on it and try to get it into an Earth Moon orbit. It would make a great spaceship or even a great facility for factories, defense testing,
TIME TO LEASE MY FERRARI, LAMBO AND OTHERS... I'LL TRY TO MAKE THE FIRST PAYMENT ON SEPTEMBER 30TH !!!!!!!!!!!! LOL !!!!!!!!
William i thought it was because you saw what i saw this morning. That william hung or whatever he is called is doing a concert on the today show tomorrow. When i heard that i thought " THE END IS NIGH, REPENT!!!!!!!!!" t
Thats it boys. Time for me to start running the streets naked and steal as many Ferraris as I can while I hum the theme to Bonanza.
"963,000 miles of Earth" Far as hell! AND "If it doesnt hit then we should take advantage of this great opportunity to send probes to it & maybe some robots to do some test mining on it." Depending on how fast it moves and rotates on its axis, we may not be able to land on it. But I agree, the study of it would bring new life into owr sciences. And when it passes by, I'll grab my boy toy and yell "suck on this! I'll already be dead the next time you pass by!" O, wait, I'll already be dead? Awwwwwww.
I think you guys will find these links very interesting. http://janus.astro.umd.edu/astro/impact.html http://home.att.net/~srschmitt/crater.html http://liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov/academy/space/solarsystem/meteors/ImpactHazard.html http://homepages.wmich.edu/~korista/kaboom.html Check out some of the 3D supercomputer asteriod impact simulations in the above link. http://www4.tpg.com.au/users/horsts/climate.htm
There is, I think, a little bit of misunderstanding of just how close this thing is going to get (or isn't going to get I should say). The closest it will get is 0.0104AU. Sounds close, eh? Well, 1AU is about 93 MILLION miles. It will get around 960,000 miles close to earth. Not very close. Its probably about as likely to hit us as you would be able to hit a specific blade of grass with a lawn dart from 50 meters away. Maybe with enough shots, but any given shot is very unlikely to hit. We have nothing to worry about on 9/29/04 IMO.
I Hope not byte we still have to do something to protect Earth from future impacts. 1) we should use this great opportunity to send probes to this asteroid & at the least mount some scientific equipment on it to send data back to Earth of its travels, We can get a free tour of the soalr system on the back of this thing so why not. 2) An enterprising Co could stake a claim on this thing thats probably worth $Billions just by shooting a probe out to it. Later as technology develops we can send robots out to set up a robotic mining facility there 3) we could send people there after robots have dug out the center & set up a nice cozy habitat. Its a natural spacecraft & the rock is probably thick enough to block radiation. Add some large rocket engines &we may be able to establish some control over its direction. Meanwhile we have a great shell for a spacecraft for free & we can mine it for resources while we use it as a spacecraft 4) We seriously need to find a way to deal with a menace like this in the future because it IS coming. Best idea is to divert it off course & strip mine it. next best idea is to find a way to destroy or divert it if we find it unusable
Im not sure if it has been mentioned already, but the asteriod that wiped out the dinosaurs was six miles wide. This three mile asteroid would have similar effects. I dont really think its anythinhg to worrk about, as there are alot of near earth objects out there and earth is pretty small. I was watching a program on the history channel, i forgot what it was called, but it had a segment about ways to stop objects from hitting earth. One was planting a nuclear device on the aseriod to change its course. If an object was actually going to hit earth, we would find a way to make it miss. We realy wouldnt have any other choice. I dont think we have anything to worry about.