Stop throwing those bleeding asteroids at us!

[ReaperFett]

They could take someones eye out! :mad


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3517319.stm


Pretty darn close really.

[Figrin D'an]

Yeah... 30 meters would have been enough to do some significant damage.

Reminds me of a story from a couple of years ago... in British Columbia, a small meteor of only a couple of feet in diameter exploded over a smaller town. It didn't cause any damage, but residents said they thought a plane had exploded.

The decibels of the explosion has to do with the porocity of the rock, though, from what I understand.

[JMK]

Yeah that was a little too close. I wonder if there is more specific information available aside from "the Northern Hemisphere" as an impact site. That's weak.

[Master Yoghurt]

It actually turned out to be a lot larger. About 500 meter. And it was not as close as originally estimated.


And 2004 AS1? It turned out to be bigger than anyone had thought - about 500m wide. It eventually passed the Earth at a distance of about 12 million km - 32 times the Earth-Moon distance, posing no danger to us whatsoever.

What I find disturbing is not that they were concidering to call the president (although, that would have been embarassing). It was the fact a large object like that can get on a colliding course with the earth and we would be unable to determine its trajectory within 9 hours.

What could have been done if it was a 2 km wide asteroid heading straight at our planet and we only had 9 hours to react? Not that much to do really. Maybe send a nuclear missile towards it and hope it evaporates, but that is one heck of a gamble..

[JMK]

I also find it pretty weak that they were 470 meters off in it's size.

With an asteroid of that size, it's all over.

[jjwr]

What botheres me is there are so many huge rocks up there and all it will take is a single big one they don't see until its too late.

Money, and lots of it needs to be spent to keep the planet safe from this sort of thing, of course it won't get spent, too many people are short sighted and only see all the terrestial issues we have instead of thinking of the planet as a whole and protecting us all.

[Jedi Master Carr]

They don't have enough people watching for these things. It is scary have to say that.

[JMK]

Maybe they can have Barry Bonds or some other juiced up ball player smash the space rock back into orbit. I know there are other aSTEROID jokes in there, but I'm too sleepy to think of a good one.

[Figrin D'an]

Originally posted by Master Yoghurt
Maybe send a nuclear missile towards it and hope it evaporates, but that is one heck of a gamble..


Yeah, it is. The best chance for a nuclear explosion to have an effect is to launch it while the asteroid is still far away from the Earth, and do a proximity detenation to alter it's course enough so it misses hitting us. Trying to actually blow it up would likely just make us a target for a bunch of fragments instead of one big one.

Some physicists have even said that a proximity detonation might not work, because of the whole rock porocity thing I mentioned earlier.

[Ryan Pode]

I think we could blow up any asteroids, all it takes is enough nukes and between us and Russia, we're not lacking in that department.

[ReaperFett]

But then you risk passing the point where they'll all shower the Earth.

[JMK]

Exactly. What if one malfunctions? What about human error? I agree it would be the only real choice in the face of oblivion, but it certainly isn't a guarantee of safety.

[ReaperFett]

What we need is Bruce Willis :D

[Darth Viscera]

Yes, Bruce Willis will surely fly up in his giant plot hole and vaporise the oncoming asteroid.

[ReaperFett]

What plot hole?

[Jedi Master Carr]

I think he means the whole thing about the US using oil drillers instead of astronauts :p Actually the way they blew up the comet in Deep Impact was more realistic but of of course that is just my opinion.

[ReaperFett]

But is that truly a plot hole? It was explained, they got training. A plot hole would be if they went up a day after being asked and could fly the shuttles themselves.


My favourite answer was from a parody I read. Asteroid the size of Texas coming? Get everyone out of Texas, blow Texas up, Asteroid lands in the hole snugly :D

[Darth Viscera]

Originally posted by ReaperFett
What plot hole?

nothing, forget I brought it up.

[Charley]

When do we go and attack Klendathu for its oil?

[Ryan Pode]

Once Bush is low enough in the polls.

[Darth Viscera]

The only good bug is a dead bug!

[Ryan Pode]

Would you like to know more?

[Lilaena De'Ville]

I hated that movie.

[Jedi Master Carr]

You mean Armageadeon? Yeah it wasn't a very good movie, it had a lot of problems IMO. Deep Impact wasn't much better.

[Daiquiri Van-Derveld]

She meant Starship Troopers. I liked it and Armegedon

[Jedi Master Carr]

I didn't like Armagedeon the whole plot seemed impossible to me. Deep Impact wasn't much better the only good thing was there was a year to get ready which made it a little more believable. But still in both cases when the astroid and comet got blown up there would have been smaller pieces of it coming to earth.

[Darth Viscera]

Deep Impact had Elijah Wood in it. Automatic A+ from me, Elijah Wood is :cool

[Jedi Master Carr]

Well my reason for it being better is two reasons one Morgan Freeman he is the man :) Also it was the one of the first movies that I saw Leelee Sobieski in heh, too bad she has not made a movie in while.

[Charley]

I liked Starship Troopers.

I disliked both Deep Impact and Armageddon intensely.

[Marcus Telcontar]

Agreed. Starship Troopers had a certain B grade charm. Armageddon and Deep Impact sucked fiercely.

[ReaperFett]

Starship Troopers was bad in a great way IMO :)

Loved Armageddon.


Hated Deep Impact.

[Ryan Pode]

Starship Troopers is awesome. I think Armeggedon is a funny movie.

[JediBoricua]

They are makine a low budget Starship Trooper sequel.

I thik it will rock!

As long as it is cheesy it's all right with me.

[Darth Viscera]

It rocked so much that it not only went straight to DVD, it went straight to DVD as an extra feature on the starship troopers cartoon dvds.

[JMK]

http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2004/03/18/sci-tech/asteroid040318

Don't know if this is the same thing as the original topic in the thread, but THIS is close.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

Yikes! That's sorta scary.