Tunguska-sized space rock buzzes Earth.

[hutch--]

I think the stats are in our favour, most probably any large rock would land in the drink or in an uninhabited area as human beings still only inhabit very small areas of the whole planet surface. Somewhere long ago I saw a photo from an American couple in the midwest somewhere that had a meteor crash through the roof and ceiling of their house, it was about a foot round and while it did make a mess of the house it was no earth shattering event.

Seems to depend on the angle they come in at, a glancing trajectory means they usually burn up in the atmosphere where the ones that come in steep don't have as much time to burn up.

I remember being at a friends place in the country some years ago where it is dark at night and very clear night skies and I remember watching a meteor burning up from horizon to horizon, spectacular to watch but common enough if you live in the country with clear skies.

[dedndave]

as i understand it, extremely large debris get pulled into the gravity of either the sun or jupiter
this is one of the things scientists look for in inhabitable solar system candidates
it needs to have a jupiter-like huge planet for protection

[hutch--]

Yeah, having a junk collector in orbit seems to work well. Jupiter is supposed to be a gas planet but if it keeps vacuum cleaning the solar system perhaps one day it will end up with a solid core. Gravity would be really something though.

[xanatose]

mmm, never thought of that. If it where not for Jupiter we would have being hit by a meteor a long time ago.

Eventually the earth will be hit by a doomsday one.  The question is when. Hopefully, we would have colonies in space when it happens, otherwise we will go extinct.


Well, nothing to do about, except continue and increase our technology and hope that we win the race. :)

[dedndave]

well - the sun is supposed to go nova around the year 3500 (a rough estimate)
even if we do not get hit by a large rock, we have that eventuality
personally, i don't think we have to rely on the cosmos to do us in
we seem to be doing just fine by ourselves - lol
it may well be that the "global warming" issue, or at least, the reprocussions from it will make a real mess out of things
also, we are overdue for a magnetic polar reversal (every 100,000 years or so)
during the reversal, the planet loses it's protective shield against radiation from the sun (well, that's my theory anyways)

from the movie "Brothers Grimm"; Will Grimm:
It's a short, bitter struggle, then you die

[FORTRANS]

well - the sun is supposed to go nova around the year 3500 (a rough estimate)

   No, no, no.  The Sun has about 3.5-4.5 _BILLION_ years left
as a normal star + red giant phase.  Then it will be a white dwarf.
White dwarfs do go nova, but only if in a binary system with another
star.

even if we do not get hit by a large rock, we have that eventuality
personally, i don't think we have to rely on the cosmos to do us in
we seem to be doing just fine by ourselves - lol

   That is much closer to reality (unfortunately)

   Anywho...

Regards,

Steve

[dedndave]

lol red giant phase or white dwarf don't sound good either

        INVOKE  SunBlocker,
                SPF 0FFFFFFFFh

(i have been accused of not having enough masm content in my posts - lol)

[FORTRANS]

lol red giant phase or white dwarf don't sound good either

   Well, don't worry too much about the white dwarf, the Earth
gets consumed (probably) by the Sun when it is a red giant.  In
any event, the Earth will have real problems due to us in the
much nearer term.

Cheers,

Steve N.

[Mark Jones]

[dedndave]

yah - that thing is supposed to suck us all into a black hole - lol
i doubt their power supply is big enough

[FORTRANS]

Hi,

   Dead on, the power supply is way too small to make nasty black holes.

   Of note:  I picked up a copy of the August 2009 Sky and Telescope
magazine which has two articles that may be of interest.  One covers
a asteroid discovered just before it hit earth, and the search for meteorites
from it in Sudan.  The second discusses U Scorpii, a recurrent nova that
might go off more or less soon.

Regards,

Steve N.

[dedndave]

[Mark Jones]

I read that the LHC will in all likelihood create micro-black holes, however they are presumed to exist for only a femto-second or so... I still think it sounds like a bad idea.

However, linking the two topics, a "point-singularity-projector" would make one helluva asteroid-eater...

[dedndave]

suck it in on itself - hmmmm - wish i had thought of that with the first wife

[Bill Cravener]

Wow, it happened again !! That's two close calls in just one year !! This wasn't a big one, but I don't like the fact that they didn't discover it until the thing was passing by.

Asteroid passes just 8,700miles from Earth - with only 15 hours warning