An Asteroid Just Passed Within 180,000 Miles of Earth (ktla.com) 79
game of Asteroids
An anonymous reader shared this report from The Hill:
An asteroid the size of a football stadium threaded the needle between Earth and the moon Saturday morning — the second of two astronomical near misses in three days. Near miss, in this case, is a relative term: Saturday's asteroid, 2024 MK, came within 180,000 miles of Earth. On Thursday, meanwhile, asteroid 2011 UL21 flew within 4 million miles.
But the Saturday passage of 2024 MK — which scientists discovered only two weeks ago — coincides with a sobering reminder of threats from space. Sunday is Asteroid Day, the anniversary of the 1908 explosion of a rock from space above a Russian town — the sort of danger that, astronomers warn, is always lurking as the Earth hurtles through space... In 2013, for instance, an asteroid about 62 feet across that broke apart nearly 20 miles above Siberia released 30 times as much energy as the atomic bomb that hit Hiroshima. While most of the impact energy was absorbed by the atmosphere, the detonation triggered a shock wave that blew out windows and injured more than a thousand people.
The article points out that if Saturday's asteroid had hit earth, the impact would have "the equivalent impact energy in the hundreds of megaton approaching a gigaton," Peter Brown of Canada's Western University told the Canadian Broadcasting Service. (For comparison, most hydrogen bombs are in the 50-megaton range.) Brown said "It's the sort of thing that if it hit the east coast of the U.S., you would have catastrophic effects over most of the eastern seaboard. But it's not big enough to affect the whole world."
Meanwhile, the article adds that last Thursday's asteroid — "while it was comfortably far out in space" — was the size of Mt. Everest. "At 1.5 miles in diameter, that asteroid was about a quarter the size of the asteroid that struck the earth 65 million years ago, wiping out all dinosaurs that walked, as well as the majority of life on earth." But the risk of a collision like that "is very, very low." NASA has estimated that a civilization-ending event (like the collision of an asteroid the size of Thursday's with the Earth) should only happen every few million years. And such an impact from an asteroid half a mile in diameter or bigger will be almost impossible for a very long time, according to findings published last year in The Astronomical Journal.
NASA's catalog of large and dangerous objects like 2011 UL21 is now 95 percent complete, MIT Technology Review reported.
But the Saturday passage of 2024 MK — which scientists discovered only two weeks ago — coincides with a sobering reminder of threats from space. Sunday is Asteroid Day, the anniversary of the 1908 explosion of a rock from space above a Russian town — the sort of danger that, astronomers warn, is always lurking as the Earth hurtles through space... In 2013, for instance, an asteroid about 62 feet across that broke apart nearly 20 miles above Siberia released 30 times as much energy as the atomic bomb that hit Hiroshima. While most of the impact energy was absorbed by the atmosphere, the detonation triggered a shock wave that blew out windows and injured more than a thousand people.
The article points out that if Saturday's asteroid had hit earth, the impact would have "the equivalent impact energy in the hundreds of megaton approaching a gigaton," Peter Brown of Canada's Western University told the Canadian Broadcasting Service. (For comparison, most hydrogen bombs are in the 50-megaton range.) Brown said "It's the sort of thing that if it hit the east coast of the U.S., you would have catastrophic effects over most of the eastern seaboard. But it's not big enough to affect the whole world."
Meanwhile, the article adds that last Thursday's asteroid — "while it was comfortably far out in space" — was the size of Mt. Everest. "At 1.5 miles in diameter, that asteroid was about a quarter the size of the asteroid that struck the earth 65 million years ago, wiping out all dinosaurs that walked, as well as the majority of life on earth." But the risk of a collision like that "is very, very low." NASA has estimated that a civilization-ending event (like the collision of an asteroid the size of Thursday's with the Earth) should only happen every few million years. And such an impact from an asteroid half a mile in diameter or bigger will be almost impossible for a very long time, according to findings published last year in The Astronomical Journal.
NASA's catalog of large and dangerous objects like 2011 UL21 is now 95 percent complete, MIT Technology Review reported.
50 MT H-bomb not "typical" (Score:5, Informative)
It seems that only one 50 MT H-bomb was ever tested, the Tsar Bomba.
The highest yield test from the US was the 15 MT Castle Bravo shot, a yield that was triple the intended 5 MT on account of a misunderstanding of the efficacy of different isotopes of lithium in substituting for liquified deuterium in the impractical-as-a-weapon Ivy Mike shot.
This unexpected high yield was not considered a bonus; it terrified the personnel conducting the shot and it radiation-poisoned the crew of a Japanese fishing boat.
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This unexpected high yield was not considered a bonus; it terrified the personnel conducting the shot and it radiation-poisoned the crew of a Japanese fishing boat.
Indeed. A common misperception by non-military people is that the military wants the biggest explosion/bang possible. This is incorrect. We want precisely the bang required to destroy the target.
Now, in the interests of flexibility, acknowledgement that we can't necessarily put the explosion right on the target, etc... We generally have a number of "standard yield" devices, like 500 and 2000 pound bombs, so that we can just select the appropriate general size.
As such, getting 15MT when we wanted 5MT is
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The military, like every other government branch, maximizes the outlays that go to its bureaucrats.
This means keeping funding at maximum and costs that do not in some way line the pockets of the bureaucrats at minimum.
All other concerns are of relatively minor importance.
Hence the "skyrocketing" costs of anything military, whether it works, or, most often, not.
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Really? Have you ever looked at the Federal Budget outlays? Hint: very little goes to bureaucrats. The vast majority goes to people in the forms of SS, Medicare, other social services, and military personal.
It is stupid thinking more money means more lining of pockets of bureaucrats, they do not get any increase in take home pay just because their agency's budget went up. And if it did go up by more than inflation, it is because Congress wanted to spend the money on the function of that agency which usually
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Actually, the majority of federal monies go into the pockets of the bankers, not the bureaucrats or politicians.
We could balance our budget and spend within our means, but people would accuse us of copying Switzerland, and we can't have that. Living within one's means by careful budgeting is a right wing value these days.
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Living within one's means by careful budgeting is a right wing value these days.
Really? So it has changed since 2017?
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A standard misconception is that if you use enough measuring units you'll be perceived on the Internet as knowing someting.
The Internet is not your judge, confessor, or mother.
You know nothing.
Explosives yield is only one of many factors indicating the appropriate use.
Begone, fake.
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You mistake briefness for ignorance.
Begone Troll.
Re: 50 MT H-bomb not "typical" (Score:2, Insightful)
Either way, a near gigaton asteroid impact would be a net gain on the world if it could be channeled correctly. Say Moscow, for example.
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So you want to destroy more than 1000 years of Art and History and about 1.5 million people because of a current problem with a single person? That's like taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
Considering how much art and history Russia is deliberately destroying in Ukraine, not to mention the civilians and infrastructure it is deliberately targeting, and all the art and history it has deliberately destroyed whenever it invades its neighbors, turn about is fair play.
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I'm thinking Mar A Lago... when Trump's at home.
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Wow...he really still lives in your head, doesn't he?
I find this a bit amazing, seeing that he hasn't been president in involved in govt. at all for over 3 years....
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DC, when the presiditiot and veep are addressing a joint session of Congress (they'd probably debate whether to do anything about the incoming asteroid or not).
"...a near gigaton asteroid impact..." (Score:2)
Re:50 MT H-bomb not "typical" (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re: 50 MT H-bomb not "typical" (Score:2)
What boggles the mind is that absolutely no one has asked whether it was American football or the one where they actually use their feet
There was a recent simulation (Score:4, Insightful)
It's one of those things where even if we don't nuke ourselves we're still fighting an uphill battle. We need to be moving towards a more cooperative instead of competitive civilization but you're taught from the moment you can think how great competition is. So much so it's hard to even imagine cooperating.
Re:There was a recent simulation (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:There was a recent simulation (Score:4, Insightful)
He's satirizing denialism.
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So you believe cooperation is the equivalent of communism? You sound like the very Socrates of incel philosophers.
Re: There was a recent simulation (Score:1)
So you believe cooperation is the equivalent of communism?
Quite an odd non-sequitor, but no. However, it is a fact that under socialism, the government holds a monopoly on all industries.
You sound like the very Socrates of incel philosophers.
And you sound like an ordinary homeschooled incel.
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But there are so many people especially in the West who talk about Socialism like a blind would talk about colors.
Re: There was a recent simulation (Score:2)
No, Under socialism, the goverment holds a monopoly how to distribute wealth. It could do that by imposing monopolies on all industries, but that's only one way of many.
That is not at all what socialism is.
But there are so many people especially in the West who talk about Socialism like a blind would talk about colors.
Which obviously includes you. The definition of socialism is quite simple: The government owns the means of production.
It's funny the way you guys talk about it, and none of you can even provide the same definition. Shit, you guys don't even understand the meaning of the word "wealth". What I described earlier, about how socialists view competition, is literally what they taught in schools in the USSR.
Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it. So good lu
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Over 70 percent of the economy of Venezuela is privately held. In Sweden it's under 50 percent. If it weren't for a quarter century of constant economic attacks by the US they'd be doing much, much better.
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If it weren't for a quarter century of constant economic attacks by the US they'd be doing much, much better.
They already were doing much, much better. The US had nothing to do with their current troubles, that is entirely self-induced. By the time the US got involved with anything at all, the damage had already been done.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2018... [foreignpolicy.com]
But I'm sure you believe Maduro is the legitimate dictator of Venezuela and that Chavez was a genius, so there's no point in having this conversation.
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Nobody said anything about communism. Let me guess, you inferred that from the mention of the USSR? After you come down from your last fix, go read a history book.
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Ok when you end up in the emergency room, I hope you find some people willing to cooperate. Hint don't call them communists.
Nice of you to take a break from your Cheetos and torture porn to share your beautiful opinion with us.
Hey now! What did Cheetos ever do to you?
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So you think that decades of economic attacks by the worldwide banking sectors and the most powerful economic power on the planet has no effect, all of their problems are because they're operating their economy to benefit the majority rather than the elites? You must be a Libertardian, no one else is quite as uniquely ignorant.
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So you think that decades of economic attacks by the worldwide banking sectors and the most powerful economic power on the planet has no effect, all of their problems are because they're operating their economy to benefit the majority rather than the elites?
So you actually believe that the political elite in the USSR didn't receive the greatest benefit? And the USSR really didn't give a shit about the worldwide banking sectors. They had conquered enough of Eastern Europe that they could simply siphon off whatever they needed. This is exactly why Eastern Europe was celebrating the fall of the USSR. Cuba was horrified by it, but mainly because the USSR was just handing them everything they needed. More than that, the USSR actively prevented them from having any
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Please Provide Details (Score:2)
The main issue was that it was basically impossible to secure funding to do anything about it in time because it wasn't 100% guaranteed in the simulation that the asteroid would hit.
So precisely what was the probability from the simulation? I have never heard of any simulation that showed a significant chance of an impact. What I have heard of is initial simulations giving non-zero chances and then improved simulations being run that effectively rule out the chance: you'll never get absolutely zero just vanishingly small which paints a very different picture from the one you are trying to project.
Scientists have a long history of strong international collaboration, we regularly wor
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My understanding of the poster was that it was a 'simulation' like a war game, not a projection of an actual asteroidal path. Different usages of a word like 'simulation' can cause confusion.
If he were referring to your usage of 'simulation' I have no doubt but that you're correct about the worldwide community of scientists coming together. Unfortunately you don't get to decide how money is spent, that decision is left to the utterly useless political class for some reason, most of whom are controlled to
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My understanding of the poster was that it was a 'simulation' like a war game
That seems unlikely since, 14-years out, you have 14-years to get funding and surely they did not run the simulation over multiple years? Not to mention the fact the first thing you do in that situation is prioritize observations - which costs no money, just disruption of people's instrument time - to determine whether or not it will hit.
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Here's the study. Haven't read the entire thing, but it looks interesting.
https://www.nasa.gov/news-rele... [nasa.gov].
During the exercise, participants considered potential national and global responses to a hypothetical scenario in which a never-before-detected asteroid was identified that had, according to initial calculations, a 72% chance of hitting Earth in approximately 14 years. The preliminary observations described in the exercise, however, were not sufficient to precisely determine the asteroid’s siz
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I think that was part of the point:
“The uncertainties in these initial conditions for the exercise allowed participants to consider a particularly challenging set of circumstances,”
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Unfortunately this is a vague recollection of something without a single fact to anchor it or search on (within 14 years is awfully vague given no date for the claimed study) and without a link. And it comparing it to actual accounts of possible impactors that are detected it appears to be a serious misunderstanding.
This appears to be most probably a garbled recollection of 99942 Apophis [wikipedia.org] for which observations of 12/2004 gave a 2.7% chance of colliding with Earth in 2029 (24 years in the future). All such a
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I'm not terribly confident in their claim that it's "impossible" for the Earth to be hit by an asteroid with very little warning. We've accidentally found several rocks just whipping through the Solar System on their way to somewhere else, and we aren't even looking for them. The first ones weren't even noticed until they had already passed through the ecliptic.
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I'd be interested if you could dig up a link.
Rotate, thrust, and fire, but not in a nasty way. (Score:2)
"game of Asteroids An anonymous reader shared this report from The Hill:"
In the Game of Asteroids, you're the asteroid or you die.
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"game of Asteroids An anonymous reader shared this report from The Hill:"
In the Game of Asteroids, you're the asteroid or you die.
It doesn't really end well for most of the asteroids, either.
The actual problem (Score:5, Insightful)
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In fact, hitting the water might be worse, the blast area on land is smaller than a mega tsunami. At least there'd be less dust though.
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Re:The actual problem (Score:4, Informative)
The actual problem wasn't that it passed that "close" to Earth - sure, it was somewhat close, but there have been objects that have passed closer, and objects that are estimated to pass closer in the future that we've already detected. What worries me is that we've only detected it 2 weeks ago, so we could have never done anything about it. This object is quite big for something we hadn't seen before. For comparison: the Chelyabinsk meteor 11 years ago was just 19 meters in diameter, not 1.5 miles (more than a factor of 100), and even with that one we were already lucky that it a) mostly exploded while still in the upper atmosphere and b) did that over an area where the average population density was quite low.
You are confusing two different asteroids, one that came close (180,000 miles) and one that did not come close at all (4 million miles). The second not-close one is 2011 UL21 which was discovered in 2011, 13 years ago. 95% of all asteroids in this size range are now identified, and we will get close to 100% over the next decade (especially after the Vera Rubin Observatory goes online early next year).
The asteroid just discovered (because relatively small) is 2024 MK is in the 140 m class (200 megaton) of which 25,000 are estimated to exist as potential impactors, and only 40% currently catalogued. If this hit Earth it would be a catastrophic scale explosion. Two factors to bear in mind -- this is passing by at 45 times the radius of the Earth, for every asteroid that comes this close, or closer, only about 1 in 2000 is close enough to hit the Earth, and only 0.2% of the Earth's surface is urban area where the effect would be truly catastrophic. Almost everywhere else evacuation is practical to save all human life and could possibly be organized in two weeks.
An asteroid the size of a football stadium ? (Score:2)
What is the mass and volume of this football stadium?
“Sunday is Asteroid Day, the anniversary of the 1908 explosion of a rock from space above a Russian town”
The 1908 Tunguska meteor event [wikipedia.org] did not occur above a Russian town.
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"What is the mass and volume of this football stadium?"
That depends on whether its an american stadium full of beached whales guzzling on popcorn and pop or elsewhere in the world. If the former then add another few thousand tons of flammable blubber.
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units, people! was it a metric or an imperial stadium??
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C'mon, people, Standard units!
Nothing to see here (Score:1)
The only "new" thing is now we have the birds in orbit to show us the incoming bodies.
There are no "more" nor any "less" such objects.
Alll we have is MORE science data leading to MORE media hype.
Whatevers DID hit the Earth, whatever WILL hit the Earth, none of that changes.
Queue the mass hysteria, illiterate news stories, and SEND UP BRUCE WILLIS TO BLOW IT UP.
Just don't do it on Boeing so he doesn't get stranded.
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So it makes no sense to warn about newly discovered dangers because they were always there?
You: Doctor, this thing here has started hurting a lot.
Doctor: Calm down, Son. That cancer has been there for awhile and you are only now noticing it. Just relax and ignore the hype.
NASA too busy with delaing with Boeing's mess (Score:2)
No time and money to look at them asteroids flying by.
Well... (Score:2)
I'll bet that if something like that hit the Earth, provoking a decades long winter due to all particulate floating around, then we would be glad of all that CO2 in the atmosphere.
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Maybe, until the smog cleared and then temperatures shot up way beyond what they are now because of all the extra CO2 caused by the impact itself and decaying plant matter.
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And all the water vapor.
Did they pass by us? (Score:2)
Or did we pass by them? Maybe they were just lounging around in their underwear and we blew past them like a banshee trying to catch up to the wild hunt.
Taurid Station (Score:2)
From the best historical evidence, getting whacked by the Taurid Meteor Stream twice a year has done the most cataclysmic damage to Earth in recorded history and is the most likely thing to wipe us out by the billons.
We ought to be out there gathering that material, mining it, and building a permanent space station with the material. Let's call it Taurid Station for ease of discussion.
We have all the science we need and the engineering will follow demand. Start with thorough mapping. There's a natural tran
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If the energy of the Climate Alarmists could be properly redirected to actual extinction risks
AGW and pesticides are breaking down the food chain.
https://entrepreneurship.de/en... [entrepreneurship.de]
https://www.sciencedirect.com/... [sciencedirect.com]
You think that's not an extinction risk? I take it that eating is not a priority for you?
You deniers are so boringly dumb I can barely stand it.
It's too bad because I agree with you about the development of space, but then I have to wonder who you rented those ideas from, because you obviously didn't get them honestly.
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What we don't have is the GDP or logistical capability to operate in a substantial way at that remove.
> Start with thorough mapping.
That, at least, is probably feasible. Well, depending on how rigorously you define "thorough", but yeah, we could map such things better than we have done to date, certainly.
As the saying goes... (Score:2)
"A miss is as good as a light-second."
The distance given is meaningless (Score:2)
Don't look up. (Score:2)
just the east coast (Score:2)
If an asteroid impact (or anything else, natural or man-caused) suddenly affected "just the eastern seaboard". that WOULD quite definitely affect "the whole world". How seriously depends of course on what the "effect" was. For example, killing most of the people around a particular couple of cities and blowing up their buildings would be "the end of the world" as we know it.
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... is now 95 percent complete (Score:1)