Close Approach By Asteroid 2012 BX34 55
An anonymous reader writes with news that asteroid 2012 BX34, 11 meters wide, is in the process of passing within 60,000km of Earth — about a fifth of the distance between the Earth and the Moon. At that size, the asteroid would pose no danger even if it hit the Earth's atmosphere.
Ok.. The mayans were right. (Score:1, Funny)
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We are shifting, astrologically, from the Age of Pisces to the Age of Aquarius.
Hooray for water recycling!
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Either the summary changed or Brucelet neglected to read the summary where it says the asteroid is 11 meters wide.
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Just because it has called out a single dimension does not say much about its size.
Is it 11 meters wide 300 meters long and 1k in depth? Is it spherical? If not then 11 meters wide means not much of anything.
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I was just being an ass. :)
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"...news that asteroid 2012 BX34, 11 meters wide..."
Size is one thing, what's it made of? If it were iron/nickel it could be "interesting times" should it come to earth. Rocky wouldn't be as bad. Frozen gasses would be pretty exciting, but as it's not trailing a coma, it's likely one of the former. If you're looking for a place it's likely to land, probability seems to favour Canada - consider these craters and how many are in the GWN [environmen...affiti.com]
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at 11 meters? no it certainly would not be 'interesting times'. It would be a cool fire show. If some is really unlcuck, it might how a city. While bad for the the city, certainly nothing for anyone else.
It would weight, what 50,000 tons?(approx) a 747 has a min. operational weight of around 40,000 tons. Up to 9It could weight about the same as a 747. It would be travelling at 40K. It would be nothing like the craters you link to. Awesome link, btw.
Add tio that it would probably break up into at least two l
Anyone feel like jumping off onto it? (Score:2)
Hope people have some sanity, but with the shape of the world today, I have my doubts.
If that's a rocky asteroid, as opposed to mostly frozen gasses, I expect it could still present a sizeable dent. Lots of old craters on this world, just covered up mostly by erosion, plant life, etc.
Re:Anyone feel like jumping off onto it? (Score:5, Informative)
nope, stony asteroid has to be about 35 meters or more in diameter to "make a dent", otherwise it will just burn up in atmosphere.
Re:Anyone feel like jumping off onto it? (Score:5, Interesting)
also of interest, a 10 meter metal (e.g. iron-nickel) asteroid will have big fragments that will hit the ground, for example the one that hit Sikhote-Alin mountains in Siberia in February 1947, 150 tons of fragments hit the ground and one of them weighed 1.7 tons!
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quite true, and of course greatly depends on velocity too. The size numbers are for the large part of the bell curve.
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This is why you shouldn't read wikipedia. It can be misleading. The meteoroid has the kinetic energy of that. This energy may be transferred as an airburst high in the sky. If done close enough to the ground (as you hinted), the shockwave may do damage, and the collective residual portions of the meteoroid may do damage, but I highly doubt it'll do 20 kilotons of damage to anything near the surface area.
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And that explains why I dislike tnt comparisons.
Yes total energy would be equvilient...but energy is lost entering the atmosphere, the break up so not you have several smaller "tnt piles".
Of course the event you link to was cause by a comet, so not really the same thing.
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"...energy is lost entering the atmosphere..."
Oh great, so it could contribute to global warming.
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What would be its (relative) velocity if it did hit the atmosphere?
Sure there's the idea of mass in posts (iron vs rock) but not velocity!
At sufficiently high velocities it doesn't really matter what a projectile is composed of.
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Yes, yes it does.
Is it the type of material that would cause an air burst? is the material the type the will break a part? How much matter will it kick up?
I would rather have a baseball traveling the speed of light* hit us rather then a 1000 ton pieces of stone impacting the earth at 55,000 km per hour.
The first one might destroy a city, the with one would cause mass extinctions, and ruin all civilization.
*I know it cant, just an example that mass and material type matter.
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I would rather have a baseball traveling the speed of light hit us rather then a 1000 ton pieces of stone impacting the earth at 55,000 km per hour.
Are you sure?
The "big rock hitting us pretty fast" case is a kinetic energy content of 1.167 x 10^14 Joules [wolframalpha.com], or about 28 kilotons equivalent yield. [wolframalpha.com]
OTOH, that wee little 145 gram baseball at .999c is 6.5 x 10^15 Joules [wolframalpha.com], or 1.55 megatons yield equivalent [wolframalpha.com]*.
Both of those are city-killers, I suppose, but the baseball will kill a bigger city deader.
Neither is a din
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*Actually, that "baseball at the speed of light" is classical kinetic energy. Using the relativistic kinetic energy equation, which seems appropriate at .999c, the answer turns out to be 2.78 x 10^17 Joules, [wolframalpha.com], or about 66 1/2 megatons. [wolframalpha.com] Which is a bit more than the biggest weapon we've ever used in any setting. Still not a dinosaur-killer, but damned unpleasant to be anywhere near I'd bet.
Finally someone gets my point.
Waiting (Score:2)
Talk about waiting till the last minute.
Discovery date (Score:5, Funny)
The asteroid was discovered two days ago on the 25th, and its closest approach occurs today. Not much time there to get the shuttle back from the Smithsonian, haul it down to Florida, refit it with all the stuff they took out, and launch Bruce Willis to destroy the asteroid. Good thing it's not a larger asteroid on an actual collision course. (Yeah, I know, the shuttle isn't actually at the Smithsonian yet)
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That's so incredibly false it hurts...
First of all "charcoal black" is still going to reflect a good amount of light, and it'll emit lots of IR too.
Secondly, anything big enough to block out any reasonable portion of the sky is going to get noticed just as quickly as a new shiny object. When starts go missing people notice.
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Larger asteroids are also easier to detect.
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> and launch Bruce Willis to destroy the asteroid
Can we not launch him on a oneway trip anyway ? (just to be sure :-)
Come on everybody! (Score:1)
Re:Good luck finding it... (Score:5, Insightful)
You might not find it interesting, but I do.
Just because it isn't software or hardware doesn't mean it isn't fitting for a nerd-news site. It's appropriately listed under Science and is a very interesting event. A small (seriously, 11 metres) object coming very close to Earth poses an interesting test of our local space awareness. If we can detect these things sooner and more accurately this is exactly the sort of thing that would be a candidate for capture once we have a proper space presence.
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don't get me wrong. I do find it interesting. I follow these kind of things out of personal interest on a regular basis. That's precisely why I can't say that there is nothing of significant interest with this particular event.
It is interesting. But not newsworthy (at least, in my opinion), at least not this particular event.
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I understand your point, and they are ones with bring up; however I think a general bubble in society about common natural events helps keep people interested. another grain of sand on the 'We must keep a better eye in the sky' pile.
Because I can say, without hyperbole, that we can be rendered extinct by a large rock from space. So the sooner we find them, the better are chance at diverting it.
It is common (Score:4, Interesting)
The issue is we can only tell when one is about a day out. Many times we can only see them as they are leaving, not aproaching. It is actually a fairly common occorance. You can see them at http://www.spaceweather.com/ [spaceweather.com]. Since the begniing of the year there have been 5 that have come close enough to actually be of note.
No danger at 11 meters? (Score:1)
At that size, the asteroid would pose no danger even if it hit the Earth's atmosphere
A nonsensical statement. That just depends on its trajectory.
Land on this (Score:2)