Ok, so the experts didn’t actually say “dangerously”, but in the scheme of things, I’d say the distance from Earth to Moon is pretty darn close for comfort!
A major asteroid passed by the Earth this week, and another is heading this way.
An asteroid visible in the night sky
Asteroids are similar to comets and meteors. But they are larger, myriad chunks of rock up to several hundred kilometers in diameter, generally orbiting the sun between Mars and Jupiter. There are those that approach Earth, as seen in countless home movies; and others that hit it, often ending up in museums. Then there are those with really big impacts, seen in films.
We experienced this week what astrophysicist Ben Oppenheimer and others are calling, in cosmic terms, a close encounter. A large asteroid known as 2004-XP14 came within about 435,000 kilometers of Earth, about the distance between the Earth and the moon.
2004 XP14 did not endanger earth, it was not an impact risk and has never been considered as such. In fact, there have been several closer approaches (though of smaller objects) the past few years, with distances up to only 1/3th of the earth-moon distance.
2004 XP14 did not endanger earth, it was not an impact risk and has never been considered as such. In fact, there have been several closer approaches (though of smaller objects) the past few years, with distances up to only 1/3th of the earth-moon distance.
Hey, your’re spoiling my fun! But yeah, realistically if it didn’t hit the Earth then we weren’t in any danger.
How close do they actually have to come to get caught in the Earth’s gravitational field? I’d imagine one would have to be headed directly at us to be a danger given how fast is space debris.
Okay, that’s a VERY worriesome map Accip. Earth sits right smack dab in the middle of the asteroid belt. It looks like they get more clustered closer to the sun…....
Actually, the asteroid belt is more properly confined between Mars and Jupiter, though there are always rogues that fall out of orbit and interect the orbits of the closer planets. It’s not that worrisome, really. Impacts are a very real threat to all life on the planet, but it’s an extremely rare event.
Space is big - really big - you just won’t believe how vastly, hugely mind-bogglingly big it is. You may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist, but that’s just peanuts to space. - Douglas Adams.
2004 XP14 did not endanger earth, it was not an impact risk and has never been considered as such. In fact, there have been several closer approaches (though of smaller objects) the past few years, with distances up to only 1/3th of the earth-moon distance.
I was waiting to see if the Lama was going to respond to that…...
Personally, all this stuff about asteroids striking Earth (after all, they killed the dinosaurs!)*, anyway, I think the fear is mainly being sold to us by those who will make big bucks with rockets and such to ‘defend’ us.
What a wonderful racket!
If the defense is succesful, they are heroes, and deserve their billions!
And if the defense fails, who is going to complain?
*Unproven theory, not supported by all archaeologists
My fear of asteroids hitting us is based on two things. 1) How much damage they can do, depending on the size, and 2) There’s relatively little we can do about it. I’m well aware it’s pretty damn unlikely to happen, though.
I’m not really one for conspiracy theories. Sorry, Dan.
My comment concerned opportunists and fear-mongers.
Dan, Who does not believe in too many conspiracies, because usually the alleged conspirators are so inept they could not organize a two-camel caravan, {No one has ever accused George W. Bush of being over-qualified!) and furthermore, most of these conspiracy theories would involve the co-operation of thousands of co-conspirators, not a very likely scenario, as someone would leak the info sooner or later
