Unknown 7m Asteroid Almost Impacted Earth 289
xp65 writes "A previously undiscovered asteroid came within 14,000 km of Earth — just over one Earth diameter, 1/30 the lunar distance — on Friday, and astronomers noticed it only 15 hours before closest approach. On Nov. 6 at around 16:30 EST, a 7-meter asteroid, now called 2009 VA, came only about 2 Earth radii from
impacting our planet. This is the third-closest known non-impacting Earth approach on record for a cataloged asteroid. The asteroid was discovered by the Catalina Sky Survey and was quickly identified by the Minor Planet Center in Cambridge MA as an object that would soon pass very close to the Earth. JPL's Near-Earth Object Program Office also computed an orbit solution for this object, and determined that it was not headed for an
impact." The article notes, "On average, objects the size of 2009 VA pass this close about twice per year and impact Earth about once every 5 years."
Re:How Much Damage? (Score:5, Funny)
Anybody want to weigh in?
You expect nerds and geeks to give their actual weight online?!
wah! (Score:5, Funny)
Tracking/Routing number? (Score:2, Funny)
Dang! It's the third time they try to ship my package and miss; I've had enough... And so much for the "confidential" packaging!
Re:LHC (Score:5, Funny)
Are you kidding? That thing can't even stand up to a bird with a bagel.
Re:How Much Damage? (Score:4, Funny)
You are all missing the *real* point... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Hardly noticeable if it impacted (Score:1, Funny)
naaaah. Let it be in meters. We Amurikans don't do metric, and so we're safe.
Re:How Much Damage? (Score:3, Funny)
Unless it lands on your house!
Re:How Much Damage? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:"Impact" Earth? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:How Much Damage? (Score:5, Funny)
Depends. Is there a modifier for a sneak attack?
yeah, +3 HOLY SHIT A FUCKING METEOR!
Re:How Much Damage? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:OH NOES!!! (Score:5, Funny)
Womprat = 2m
Asteroid = 7m
If by not much bigger you mean nearly triple the size... then yes. It's not much bigger.
this has been you Star Wars nitpick of the day. Thank you.
Re:Car Analogy? (Score:3, Funny)
Say you're a new galactic overlord driving a car, but you're in space, and you're drunk. You see this big blue planet getting bigger and bigger in your windscreen. At the last possible moment, you hear me yelling to get the hell off my lawn, you suddenly swerve, and miss. But you've ruined Cowboy Neal's tulips, you insensitive clod!
8980 meters, eh? (Score:5, Funny)
It would most likely bursts into a cloud of fragments at an altitude of 8980 meters. Minor local damage might occur if a larger fragment happens to hit a house.
http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/impacteffects/cgi-bin/crater.cgi?dist=0.001&diam=7&pdens=&pdens_select=8000&vel=17&theta=45&tdens=2500&tdens_select=0 [arizona.edu]
Thanks for not rounding that off to "nine kilometers" or even "about 10 km" as some less mathematically-inclined contributors would have done. If you've laboriously and precisely calculated that 2009 AV is exactly 7.000 meters in diameter, has a density of 8.000 g/cm3 and will hit the atmosphere at a 45.00 degree angle at exactly 17.00 km/s, why give up that hard-earned precision in your result?
Re:How Much Damage? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Hardly noticeable if it impacted (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Hardly noticeable if it impacted (Score:5, Funny)
Thank you for the car analogy. Without it, I would have been totally incapable of understanding the situation.
Re:How Much Damage? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Hardly noticeable if it impacted (Score:1, Funny)
7 meters isn't big, that's like 28 inches if you set them side-by-side (my volt meter is about 4 inches wide). The post said 7m which is 7MILES! That's HUGE!!!! Now, 14,000 Km, that's 14,000 kilo-miles = 14,000,000 mi... BIG DEAL! It missed us BIG TIME!
Re:How Much Damage? (Score:5, Funny)
Handy thing to have bookmarked
Sounds like a good thing to ping every so often. If the latency goes up or it stops responding altogether then the chances are that a whole load of people somewhere know something that you don't.
Re:How Much Damage? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:How Much Damage? (Score:3, Funny)
They really needed it 250-300 million years ago [universetoday.com] though. Tweaking the impact velocity to get roughly the right values according to the article, the calculator reveals anyone on the edge of the crater would be vaporized [arizona.edu], ripped to shreds from the pressure wave, then pulverized by the earthquake and drowned by a subsequent tsunami.
Now, THAT is what I call having a bad day.