So, it is new to me, but there is an asteroid that will come very close to Earth…
…too bad it will be in 2029 and I will be gone!
I’m sure a lot of people have already heard about the asteroid named Apophis, but this near earth object (NEO) was discovered back in 2004. Originally, it was said that there was a 2.7% chance that this asteroid (approximately 690 to 1,080 ft in diameter) would impact the earth. Fortunately, authorities later stated that those odds were very small. But, the asteroid will pass VERY close by the earth. To really make you get an idea how close, the preliminary estimates show that Apophis will pass about 29,470 km away from the earth. Sure, that sounds like a pretty good distance away…but consider that the moon is 385,000 km. So, Apophis will pass VERY close indeed! Maybe we should hurry up with that research on how to avoid NEO. Unfortunately, we won’t know much more until 2011 or 2013 as to the more exact path the asteroid is following. Until then, go ahead and build that debt and wait for the end of the world!
Retrieved from -NASA-
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Has NASA really watched too much Armageddon…
…or is it just a cover-up for their “Nuke the World” campaign?
Alright, so most of my friends make fun of me for really liking Armageddon…the wonderful movie with Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck and Liv Tyler in which they take ocean platform oil drillers and throw them in outer space so they can drill in an asteroid that is expected to impact the Earth so they can plant nuclear bombs to split it in pieces to miss the earth.
Rusty Schweickart, a former astronaut, has spoken against NASA’s motives for their placing nuclear weapons in orbit to blow asteroids to smithereens if they get near the Earth. The government’s plans completely contradict the verdict that was arrived at in the Armageddon movie. Nuclear weapons will have very little impact on asteroids if fired when in space, so Schweickart claims that NASA (under pressure from our government) is really just planning on placing the bombs in space for future defensive launches. I thought those days were over and done with (at least when it comes to the USA).
Anyways, Schweickart’s group, the B612 Foundation, has a much more rational approach to protecting us from asteroids. It relies on building more powerful telescopes that can identify asteroids at a much earlier stage and then use probes or unmanned spacecraft to “nudge” the asteroids to miss the Earth. At a far enough distance, only a slight movement is needed to miss us by quite a bit.
Chalk one up for ex-NASA astronauts, and zip for NASA itself.
Retrieved from -Gizmodo-
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