An asteroid, headed our way

[BigBearJohn]

Humans live in a vast solar system where 2,000 feet seems a razor-thin distance.

Yet it's just wide enough to trigger concerns that an asteroid due to buzz Earth on April 13, 2029 may shift its orbit enough to return and strike the planet seven years later

The concern: Within the object's range of possible fly-by distances lie a handful of gravitational "sweet spots," areas some 2,000 feet across that are also known as keyholes.

The physics may sound complex, but the potential ramifications are plain enough. If the asteroid passes through the most probable keyhole, its new orbit would send it slamming into Earth in 2036. It's unclear to some experts whether ground-based observatories alone will be able to provide enough accurate information in time to mount a mission to divert the asteroid, if that becomes necessary.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0726/p01s04-stss.html

[TallahasseeGrannie]

1. So should I pay the mortgage or not?

[Robertwf]

2. There's a movie

out about this type of scenario. Bruce Willis is the lead. He and his buddies become astronauts and go to the asteroid to drill an 800' hole in which they are going to place a nuke in order to blow the thing up before it hits earth. Plenty 'o special effects and a twist to the usual ending.

In reality the asteroid that is coming our way is supposed to hit in the Pacific between HI and CA. It will cause bigger tsunamis than the 12-26 one was.

That gives us some time to figure things out...

[Qibing Zero]

3. I saw this a while ago and thought it was interesting

It's really not that great a possibility, though it's still interesting to read up on.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/99942_Apophis

[Zynx]

4. That one could be easily nuked.

[TheWraith]

5. Seen this sort of story DOZENS of times.

Usually, it's a press release issued by the scientists based on a short windows of observation, and as soon as they get more data, they verify that it's not going to hit Earth.

In the worst case, Earth has a stockpile of roughly 20,000 nuclear warheads. We've gotta use them for something, and this sounds as good as anything.

[jackstraw45]

6. Better get practicing....

[neverforget]

7. ROFL

:rofl:

[Zynx]

8. Edit: Already posted

I forget things sometimes

[TheCentepedeShoes]

9. Don't ask *

He couldn't mount a mission to deal with next week.

[Silverhair]

10. They got the science badly wrong.

Here is a good discussion of the problem and what a "keyhole" actually is.

http://spaceguard.rm.iasf.cnr.it/tumblingstone/issues/num20/eng/keyhole.htm

Basically a keyhole is nothing more than the trajectory that an astroid must travel to intersect a volume of space that a target, (Earth) will occupy. Nothing complex or spooky about them. Just a flight path is all they are - nothing more. The question is if the astroid will enter one of the keyholes.

[SlowDownFast]

11. Couldn't happen sooner, IMO.

The way the world is heading, I'd sooner get it over with. Is that bad?

:shrug: