'Doomsday' asteroid Apophis more massive than first thought
Astronomers following the so-called doomsday asteroid Apophis, which will be whizzing past Earth on Thursday morning, have found the rock is much larger than had previously been assumed. Since the asteroid could hit Earth in 2036, that's a problem. The asteroid, named after an Egyptian god of chaos, darkness and destruction, had …
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2036?
So we just have to survive another two years after that until the real end of the (Unix) epoch kills us all then?
Re: 2036?
Your last sight is something resembling a gigantic burning penguin falling from the sky!
Too soon to tell what it will do. So many things will affect this thing between now and then, the probable location (Hell, the date!) will change.I'm sure with events happening all over the world the way they are, it's the least of our worries til then. When it swings back this way in 2036, we may be eager for it to strike! I can almost garantee that it will strike this planet the exact day I retire, and probably a chunk of it will strike me as I walk out the door for the last time.
"It certainly doesn’t sound as ridiculous as sending Bruce Willis up there."
That rather depends on how HARD we throw him at it, doesn't it?
Re: "It certainly doesn’t sound as ridiculous as sending Bruce Willis up there."
OK, so Apophis has an estimated mass of approximately 27 e9 kg, and its mean orbital speed is about 30 km/s.
Bruce Willis is quite a big guy, has an estimated mass of about 95 kg. Let's call it a nice round 100 kg for ease of calculations.
If we could somehow accelerate him to 0.1 of the speed of light, then ignoring relativistic effects, he'd hit Apophis with a kinetic energy of 45 petajoules. For comparison, that's about the energy of a 1 MT nuclear bomb. If we timed him to hit Apophis at the point where it had just passed Earth and was heading back out into space, he would speed it up by a paltry 11 cm per second.
The good news is that if Apophis were in geostationary orbit at the time, he would be enough to knock it out of Earth orbit completely. The bad news is, it wouldn't be enough to knock it out of the Earth's orbital path round the sun, and thus prevent it from threatening us again.
Could we use him to knock Apophis into a different orbital plane, thus ensuring that it would only cross our path once every several thousand years? Ah, I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader.
Re: "It certainly doesn’t sound as ridiculous as sending Bruce Willis up there."
"Could we use him to knock Apophis into a different orbital plane, thus ensuring that it would only cross our path once every several thousand years?"
Yes, but he'd have to hit Apophis from above/below the current orbital plane, which means we need to accelerate him two times: the first to move Bruce above/below the current plane (this can be a smallish acceleration), the second for the big hit to knock Apophis into a different orbital plane. TBH once we have the tech for the second acceleration then the first should be fairly trivial.
All in all it would be a moving experience.
Re: "It certainly doesn’t sound as ridiculous as sending Bruce Willis up there."
Can't you just accelerate him once out of the orbital plane and slingshot him around the sun a few times to hit the asteroid from the upper or lower side?
Asteroid path adjustment project
also called "the yippie kay yay motherfucker!"
This is silly
When a scientist says the radius of the asteroid is 270 m give or take 60 m,
it means that the most likely radius is 270 m from the measurements,
and that there is about 30% chance it is larger than 330 m or smaller than 210 m.
Another way of saying this is that the revised best estimate of 325 m is within one standard deviation,
so the original estimate was basically RIGHT ON as measurements go.
Screw Apophis....
Bart Simpson: The point of dinosaurs is that an asteroid is going to wipe us out no matter what we do, so we should just party hard and wreck the place.
Homer Simpson: Yeah, why should the asteroid have all the fun?
So now I understand...
That's why the 32-bit UNIX time field will overflow in 2038. The Almighty Dennis Ritchie knew the world would end before that happened!
Re: So now I understand...
He must have had a private copy of a smuggled 'different' Mayan calendar!
Re: Bruce Willis
If he fails we have Chuck Norris as a backup. Chuck never fails.
The only point to sending Bruce first is we don't have to try and bring him back...
Re: Bruce Willis
But we wouldn't need to get Chuck back. He would walk back when he's finished.
Re: Bruce Willis
Only if we can send Ben Affleck up there with him...
Bruce would be happy
If Bruce Willis found himself able to be sent up into space o blow up Apophis in 2036 I assume he would be one happy man
Santa Monica, California?
No problemo, as long as the tsunami can be surfed and Ye Olde King's Head survives for après surf brews.
Re: Santa Monica, California?
There's a short (and rather terminal) scene in Lucifer's Hammer like that. It ends with something like '..but now there's a sky scraper in his way.'
:)
Wait, this may be a good thing...
So you are saying that this space rock has a good chance of destroying both Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi at the same time ? And wipes out most everyone who voted for them ? C'mon asteroid, hurry up. I can't wait to celebate their demise with a good Wyoming beach party. We don't need CA's lousy wine anyway - good riddance to a state that cannot stop spending what it doesn't have.
Re: Wait, this may be a good thing...
I was thinking exactly the same thing!
Re: Wait, this may be a good thing...
The question is, will jake be moving his ranch from CA to somewhere more... pedestrian? if the a fore mentioned civil ills haven't made him move (given the strength of his opinion in his posts) then I for one, doubt that an asteroid will.
Re: Wait, this may be a good thing...
"......good riddance to a state that cannot stop spending what it doesn't have." In that case, can't we send up Bruce to divert it into the Med, aiming for just off Athens?
Any truth to the rumour....
..that the asteroid is being directed by Anonymous?
Santa Monica?
That's darn close to Hollywood and those MPIAA suits!
Science fail.
The weatherman can't predict weather 24 hours out. The astronomers can't predict an asteroid's path 24 years out. So what the hell are all those supercomputers doing? Crunching numbers to game the stock market? Designing the next generation grow lights?
Re: Science fail.
"So what the hell are all those supercomputers doing?"
Suggest you read about chaos theory
Re: Science fail.
Though you may find the book in a position slightly different from where you thought it was...
Re: Science fail.
"So what the hell are all those supercomputers doing? Crunching numbers to game the stock market? Designing the next generation grow lights?"
Sweet 16 bracket predictions...
Re: position slightly different from where you thought it was...
I thought was Heisenberg's?
Re: Science fail.
"Science Fail" should be your handle.
The motion of objects moving through space is understood with a great deal of accuracy, this is why they can predict how close Apophis will be this time around, and exactly when that will be; your comment about weather forecasting is a poor comparison.
Wrong Bruce Willis movie
The Fifth Element seems a better choice for dealing with rogue asteroids...
New glasses required
Watch its Earth flyby live tonight
Watching a semi-reflective 325m object travelling at high speed 36,000km away...looks like I'll be needing new glasses then. And that's even assuming there clouds will let you see any of the night sky at all.
Re: New glasses required
9M miles, 36,000km pass is in 2029.
Would be interesting to see if it ran into any Geostationary satellites.
Tiny odds?
Is it just me but 250000-1 seem pretty scary odds given what's at stake...
Re: Tiny odds?
I'd put 100 on that sort of odds...
But I dont think that there would be anyone left to collect if it does hit...
Re: Tiny odds?
250000:1 is better than 1000000:1 (that happens 9 times out of 10)
By 2036
I’ll be 81 years old and assuming I’m still alive, will have fathered 2 children, divorced once and loved a few more times, hopefully watched my daughter become a very successful businesswoman (she’s half way there already) and seen my son fulfil his dream of directing a film. I’ll have seen some of the most beautiful places on Earth (Angkor Wat, the Pyramids and standing at the foot of Everest looking up) seen the football team I support play at Wembley 3 times (won 1 lost 2) along with having eaten and drunk much more than is good for me in my life. So I reckon I’ll be more than happy to face the impending doom of an asteroid crashing into the planet.(skips off singing "its the end of the world as we know it but I feel fine")
Re: By 2036
Whilst I've been nowhere, done nothing and life has sucked thus far - another 23 years of it and I'll be ready to go as well......
Re: By 2036
"Spend entire day drunk." now added to calendar for 13/04/36.
Re: By 2036
wait until your kids have kids then you might not be so happy about the prospect of *their* world ending
(apparently I do not personally know this)
Re: By 2036
day only? Hell why not go on a bender for the whole month before at least.
Re: By 2036
My kids (and their kids) live in Arkansas. I'd file it under putting them out of their misery.
Re: By 2036
(skips off singing "its the end of the world as we know it but I feel fine")
With any luck, it'll miss the Earth, but only by 5 feet or so, taking Michael Stipe's head with it as it whizzes past.
Imagine how boring the news would be if copy writers were required to be honest and not use sensational headlines. Imagine what the world would be like if people weren't idiots and needed sensationalist headlines...
"An asteroid with a known trajectory that poses no threat of impact with Earth is found to be 20% larger than first thought."
nomenclature
Naming it after an Egyptian god of death hardly seems like a good move if you want to avoid causing panic among the populace.
Are we going to stop giving hurricanes names like Sandy and start calling them things like "Mighty Wind of Doom"?
Re: nomenclature
"Are we going to stop giving hurricanes names like Sandy and start calling them things like "Mighty Wind of Doom"?"
Yes, it's already happened.
In the UK, we have already replaced the word "Winter" with "Beast From The East".
I believe there's one coming now. Run for the hills! (Or just put a coat on)
"had been thought to be around 885 feet (270 meters) wide..."
"..., plus or minus a couple of hundred feet (60 meters)". But it wasn't.
How do you represent error bars in the error bars?
What about Global Warming?
...I'm sure human produced CO2 must have caused this somehow...
...or are we looking at the next big scare, complete with world-wide taxation and anti-asteroid legislation...?
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