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An Asteroid the size of a house will be passing close to Earth today, Nasa say that there is no risk of impact, though it does give us an opportunity to test our asteroid-warning systems. The asteroid 2012 TC4 was first spotted 5 years ago.
Unfortunately it will not be visible to us in the UK, the best chance of anyone spotting it will be in Australia using a telescope.
It’s good we can track these things, look what happened to the dinosaurs 65 million years ago! I wonder how prepared we are though if a monster asteroid is heading our way, how would we deal with that crisis? Something future generations have to plan for, even if one does not seem like it could be headed our way, but close, space is space, it can collide with something else and put it directly on route for us.
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This topic was modified 6 years, 6 months ago by
king_strongbow.
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It’s quite likely that at some point an asteroid will crash into us.
It happened at least once before, I believe, when the dinosaurs were wiped out.
Hasn’t Hollywood made a movie about it where the President of the United States flies a mission to destroy the asteroid? Or am I getting that mixed up??
My guess is that we can have as much chance of stopping it as we can of avoiding a car hurtling towards us at tremendous speed.
In other words, not a lot.
I wonder if jc will survive it?
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Reminds me to watch the classic film: Armageddon again with Bruce Willis. To be honest King…an asteroid the size of a house isn’t very big and won’t do a lot of damage. If it was spotted 5 years ago then it is in constant orbit and not likely to be any threat. Apparently, what wiped out the dino’s wasn’t the size of the rock but where it landed. If it had landed, even at the speed it was going in the deep ocean it would not have wiped out life, but according to latest scientific theories, it landed in shallower water and the speed it was going plus the debris it threw in the air polluted the sky so that the sun was blocked out and all the animals starved to death due to lack of any growth or photosynthesis.
My point in conclusion is this……it’s not whether an asteroid, meteorite hits the earth which matters…..it’s where it lands and what impact it has. In my opinion, if an asteroid has been spotted 5 years ago then it’s held in a more powerful gravitational pull, (Space debris) so to speak. Most of the damage done to the planet is through meteorites which are massive and have the speed as well to puncture the atmosphere and go so fast that although the atmosphere burns a lot of it up, it has enough potential to hit earth. It has to be one hell of a big rock to go that fast and still puncture the atmosphere. Apparently, the meteorite that wiped out the dino’s was 500 miles wide. As Crocodile Dundee would say………..”Now that’s what you call a meteorite.”
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It makes you wonder too, everyone wonders why life exists on Earth, could it be that an asteroid from somewhere else brought the starting blocks of life much earlier on, think about it, how weird are dinosaurs, so that was one building block from somewhere, like you said, they were then wiped out, and then another asteroid brought to Earth what we all know now.
It’s quite likely that at some point an asteroid will crash into us. It happened at least once before, I believe, when the dinosaurs were wiped out.
Yeah the size of a house is tiny, it would probably crumble apart when it enters our atmosphere, would not do much damage at all, still wouldnt fancy it landing in my garden though.
I remember watching a documentary about exactly what you said Q, with the Sun being blocked out and dinosaurs all basically starving to death because of it.
To be honest King…an asteroid the size of a house isn’t very big and won’t do a lot of damage.
Apparently, the under sea scan shows that the meteor hit in the indonesian sea but shallow part. Lot of research into under water these days. explains a lot of things by the map of the sea bed. Funny thing is, even though the rock in question was 500 miles wide, it wouldn’t have wiped out all life if it had fallen in deeper ocean. Apparently, we know more about space than the sea….perhaps it’s easier to get there or just more purpose in it.
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This topic was modified 6 years, 6 months ago by
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