Upstream | October 19, 2009 | 35 comments

An asteroid could have killed us Friday night

source: http://gizmodo.com/5383799/an-asteroid-could-have-killed-us-tonight

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pjacobs51
Rejoice, because you are alive: An asteroid named 2009 TM8 just passed only 216,000 miles from Earth, racing at 18,163mph. That's closer than the moon. But don't worry, there'll be plenty of opportunities to panic, says the JPL:

If it's typical density, it would create a 4 kiloton explosion in the Earth's atmosphere if it were to hit, which of course it won't. You'd expect an object of this size to fly within the orbit of the moon every few days or so.

That's what Don Yeomans—manager of the Near-Earth Object Program Office at Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California—said talking about 2009 TM8 and the other 7 million objects in the near-Earth space which, "needless to say we have discovered only a small fraction of them."

Great. At 30 feet, something like 2009 TM8 is not as big as the killer Apophis or as the superkiller that can destroy everything on Earth. But who cares about destroying everything when this thing is large enough to annihilate Brooklyn.

Ah well, as if I needed any excuses to celebrate after this sodding Friday. Zacapa rum, here I come.
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35 comments // An asteroid could have killed us Friday night

  • EtVoila
  • Gravity_Man
  • retro_Syl
  • NuclearLullaby
  • Gravity_Man
    • 0
      Gravity_Man  

    • Wouldn't it be a real hoot if all the underground facilities constructed under Washington DC is in the shape of a spaceship? A full-sided spaceship built underground, so that in the event of a major asteroid strike destroy Planet Dirt they would be set free?

      Hmm, well, in that case they would be NEEDING an asteroid to strike. What a great Plan! I would never thought of it myself. A ship for the survivors, put together underneath the ground.

      I guess they won't be building an asteroid shield after all.

    • 2 years ago
  • Gravity_Man
    • 0
      Gravity_Man  
    • Gravity_Man:

      What a silly idea. Jules Verne mixed with a Coast to Coast AM George Noory cocktail I reckon, building a spaceship in the ground for when the Earth is destroyed. And just think => I thought that up without benefit of smoking any weed (marijuana) or trying LSD.

      I must be right to trip over a subvertly buried spaceship in broad daylight without any pills..

    • 2 years ago
  • Gravity_Man
    • 0
      Gravity_Man  
    • Gravity_Man:

      I expect that big seed repository over their in Sweden or Switzerland is probably built solid enough for space travel also. Once the Earth is obliterated it will be free and the DC underground ship will be free... and they already have the Hubble up there and ISS waiting for them.

      Earth's Moon is much smaller a target than Earth so it will likely survive passing through the middle galaxy plane better than earth will. So they plus the seed repository + the Hubble and ISS latch into Moon orbit and place some of these new ion drives on the Moon, and off they all go to join Mars in its orbit http://science.slashdot.org/story/09/10/19/1324222/VASIMR-Ion-Engine-Could-Cut-M...

      It's no wonder they're letting billions starve to death while they build all their fancy plans to survive. The rest of us -still playing the games they keep throwing at us- will make a lot of dry toast and fried chicken when we join John Belushi in the big hereafter.

      I call em like I see em. The Anti-Christ plans for Paradise on Earth to never happen and start a New Earth over in Mars orbit as they gleefully toast no more religions to bother them and their new atheistic society. Run Silent, Run Deep. I bet they've promised a lot of tickets they don't plan to ever have a seat. Obama may think he has a seat but not if they're Nazis. If I'm wrong, show me. Either there's proof or there isn't otherwise we're all on a rocketsled ride to Hades.

    • 2 years ago
  • Gravity_Man
    • 0
      Gravity_Man  
    • Gravity_Man:

      If "reforms" of all kinds never going past reform if a reliable indicator, or if politician's politicking seems more & more to not result in much advancement on anything people wants, it rather appears they are all in on the spaceship plan thing. Just keep the butter churn churning, right up to time to board the Good Ship Lollypop.

      At the last few moments in time before Earth is smashed a mass exodus if politician family members toward DC or wherever else they have these installations yep, that's what ta look for... except of course by that time it's all over Daffy and Donald.

      Thank goodness all the nation's military soldiers and pilots are everywhere else in the world fighting bad guys eh? Keep all the ants busy, a good policy for CRIMINALS.

    • 2 years ago
  • Mr_Ben
    • 0
      Mr_Ben  

    • Ah yes the Tsar bomb 50 megatons, but absolutely huge and not something that could be carried as payload in an interceptor missile. But a Saturn 5 rocket would do nicely. Both mothballed and in museums a the moment though.

    • 2 years ago
  • Mr_Ben
    • 0
      Mr_Ben  

    • Bruce Willis aint going to around for ever. We are all aware of the danger, yet at the moment we would be caught with our pants down. We need some sort of international defense shield ready to nuke anything big and nasty heading our way.

    • 2 years ago
  • remanns
  • Gravity_Man
  • Gravity_Man
    • 0
      Gravity_Man  
    • remanns:

      Passenger jets may be the only "asteroid shield" we have... but that's bad because they are reducing flights. However, if the negative Hadron Collider event also works in the reverse FOR US TO CONTINUE THEN WE ARE QUITE SAFE.

    • 2 years ago
  • Gravity_Man
    • 0
      Gravity_Man  

    • I think how much destruction depends on many variables. If an asteroid came in and hit the planet in the direction it is already spinning then maybe not much would happen. If it goes against the grain or against the tide maybe a lot would happen even more than what it should.

      If one had landed on that big lake they made in China, the one whose weight caused the big quake, the added force from a direct hit could conceivably put a big crack in the planet. When water pours down and reaches the earth's core they wouldn't find dust particles left from that explosion.

      You take the Tunguska event of 1908 no one saw whether it was a meteor or an asteroid. Apparently it came in so red hot well, it had to be red hot molten metal to have made it to the surface to begin with right? Lesser objects burn up. So whatever it was it made it low & hot so it came cruising in to meet a lot of moisture in the air and could have caused the violent explosion that leveled 80 million trees in Siberia.

      Not only was the air heavy-laden with H2O it was also mixed with methane swamp gas. So it just depends on where the monster hits and what direction. It looks like before this is over we're likely to sustain many black eyes. Those people said to want the earth's population down to 2 billion or 500 million may just get what they want.

      Mankind is facing armageddons of its own making + armageddons from passing through the Milky Way central plane populated with many such objects + the Bible Armageddon, which right now looks like it would be the preferred of the three.

    • 2 years ago
  • remanns
  • CarolineS
  • Mr_Ben
    • 0
      Mr_Ben  

    • Lets hope we don't miss a real big one heading our way. What can we really do anyway to prevent earth taking a big hit?

    • 2 years ago
  • remanns
    • 0
      remanns  
    • Mr_Ben:

      We cant do a thing,..........unless we have the ability to see it coming from A LONG way off. So we have to be watching in a diligent and efficient manner.

    • 2 years ago
  • Gravity_Man
    • 0
      Gravity_Man  
    • Mr_Ben:

      You'd need a really powerful weapon and see it far enough ahead to meet it and nudge it to a different course. The Russians had a super atom bomb once. I assume they still have it. In Feb. 2008 the US showed a superfast missile that reached 25,000 mph to take out that falling satellite on the 20th.

      Combine the two together I guess. And maybe, just a thought, take Hubble off looking at distant galaxies a while.

    • 2 years ago
  • Nephwrack
  • Maeveeo
    • 0
      Maeveeo  

    • here on earth we're worried about either countries nuking each other.When it would only take an asteroid that we don't know about to do the job for us. bye bye earth.

    • 2 years ago
  • jkjkl56
  • Chinda_Kien
  • JETaylor
  • ThoughtNu
    • 0
      ThoughtNu  

    • I wonder," why bomb the moon if you know this is going to be passing by?" Why gamble with the lives of people? oh well, spill t milk...

    • 2 years ago
  • hunzedog
  • nata0204
  • Gravity_Man
    • 0
      Gravity_Man  
    • nata0204:

      Not likely by itself but if you start looking at all the other dominoes lining up => Hadron Collider, Bombing the Moon (trying to throw a dry rainbow made of ice crystals in sunlight), the close and sudden occurrence of this asteroid taken all together is beginning to look very unusual. Just like you said.

    • 2 years ago
  • buyingbackthepieces
  • sankofa416
  • Gravity_Man
  • larrysnotes
  • JulianCommongold
  • hunzedog
    • 0
      hunzedog  

    • we didnt shoot nothing at it ? thats boring. we should have shot at it with one of those laser planes.....i figure we could get wiped out at any time. not just last friday !

    • 2 years ago
  • Gravity_Man
    • 0
      Gravity_Man  
    • hunzedog:

      Who appointed you to make all those errored conclusions? Leave such stuff to the smart people. They know what's best for us, don't you know that Lionheart? He's gonna kill you man, and our money is on HIM.

      It probably didn't even happen; it's a publicity trick for more $$$. Just like the Moon landing all over again. Whewie hunzedog, you fall hook, line and sinker for everything on Current. If ya didn't see it it didn't exist.

      Like hitting the Moon and the missing plume footage. Nothing is happening.

    • 2 years ago
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