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NASA Spots 'Potentially Hazardous' Asteroid Rapidly Approaching Earth

Biff Tannen

By Biff Tannen
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Biff Tannen

Biff Tannen 45750

Posted
Posted

Probably going to miss though.  But maybe not.

 

https://uk.ign.com/articles/nasa-spots-potentially-hazardous-asteroid-rapidly-approaching-earth?sf117407075=1

 

Quote

NASA has confirmed that an asteroid larger than the tallest man-made structure in the world is currently travelling towards Earth at a speed of almost 34,000 miles per hour. Thankfully, it'll likely miss us by a few million miles.

 

According to International Business Times, NASA's Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) identified that the "potentially hazardous" asteroid could come close to intersecting with our planet's path on February 15, 2020, at 6:05 a.m. (EST).

"Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHAs) are currently defined based on parameters that measure the asteroid's potential to make threatening close approaches to the Earth," NASA said in a statement.

The colossal space rock, which is expected to pass over our planet from a distance of around 3.6 million miles, is estimated to have a diameter of around 3,250 feet, making it large enough to potentially "trigger a nuclear winter and mass extinction events" should it collide with Earth.

 

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markstanco

markstanco 12627

Posted
Posted



Well, our object collison budget's about a million dollars a year. That allows us to track about 3% of the sky, and begging your pardon sir, but it's a big-ass sky.
Part of that budget should focus on shit happening in the next 36 hours I would think.

However, I will still likely have to pay rent, AGAIN, next month.
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HornsOverIthaca

HornsOverIthaca 2335

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Posted
10 hours ago, Xian said:

Guess the Mayans were off by 20 years. 

The Mayan banking software written in COBOL that was designed to run on IBM mainframes and later emulated for mini-computers...?  I must’ve missed something on the Mayan history tour as that sounds more interesting to me than ziggurats and human sacrifice.

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Parliament

Parliament 14335

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Posted (edited)

Not gold, actually.  Just a whole buncha iron and nickel.  Ten thousand quadrillion dollars worth.

NASA has fast-tracked the Psyche mission to visit a one-of-a-kind asteroid worth $10,000 quadrillion.

Unlike most asteroids that are either icy or rocky, 16 Psyche is composed almost entirely of metallic iron and nickel, similar to the core of the Earth. If anyone could mine that asteroid, the resulting riches would collapse the paltry Earth economy of around $74 trillion.

“It’s such a strange object,” said Lindy Elkins-Tanton, the lead scientist on the NASA mission and the director of Arizona State University’s School of Earth and Space Exploration, in a January interview with Canada’s Global News.

“Even if we could grab a big metal piece and drag it back here … what would you do? Could you kind of sit on it and hide it and control the global resource — kind of like diamonds are controlled corporately — and protect your market? What if you decided you were going to bring it back and you were just going to solve the metal resource problems of humankind for all time? (This is wild speculation obviously.)”

https://www.forbes.com/sites/bridaineparnell/2017/05/26/nasa-psyche-mission-fast-tracked/#2b19f52e4ae8

Edited by Parliament
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heso

heso 2816

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Posted (edited)
7 minutes ago, SquishMitten said:

Dumb question amnesty: What would be the correct way to say it? This is actually a 3+ year old story, and every other article I can find about it similarly states "$10,000 quadrillion."

10 quintillion 

it’s the equivalent of saying 10,000 million instead of 10 billion. 

Edited by heso
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SquishMitten

SquishMitten 10444

Posted
Posted

Also, that CNEOS hyperlink really puts this shit into perspective. On the scale of things, it's coming super fucking close to us. Alternatively, it really shows how low the odds are of us getting hit by anything. It'd be like shooting a BB gun at a speck of dust from 10,000 yards away in the middle of a hurricane. 

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SquishMitten

SquishMitten 10444

Posted
Posted (edited)
9 minutes ago, MAROON said:

so for perspective the Moon is 239k miles away.  This thing will get within 3.6 million miles....slow news Day at NASA I guess.

Well sure, but the moon is in a stable, predictable course. Seems we only have an educated guess at where this rock is headed. Should they never say anything unless they're 100% sure we're doomed? Because that's really the only time I'd prefer they just keep it to themselves. 

Edited by SquishMitten
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