Asteroid close pass by

[SLAYER]

Yep, another one. Asteroid 2018 CB will pass by on Friday. We'll be safe, I've seen distance estimates from 35,000 to 44,000 miles from Earth. I mainly just thought this was an interesting picture to post. It shows the orbits of all the near Earth, potentially hazardous, asteroids that we know of so far. Over 1,400 of em.

Ride the asteroid...

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[SadVarant]

People worry about nuclear holocaust or religious doomsday, but I reckon these fuckin' things right here are the biggest potential to the end of our world. Every time one of these comes close it shows just how small and fragile our planet, and ultimately we with it, are compared to the rest of the cosmos.

[SLAYER]

Makes you think. Actually, since just last weekend, there have already been 7 asteroids that past near Earth. None of them as close as this Friday pass, but the biggest one was 2,100 feet (640 meters) across. The famous crater in Arizona was caused by a hunk of iron only 160 feet (50 meters) across.

[FrostyQN]

You're welcome.

[NoTrouble]

Looks more like your cat was being a shithead with a ball of yarn ...

40,000 miles is not very far away when you look at the big picture but luckily most objects never make it into the atmosphere and just bounce off and continue on their way to fuck with something else.

[alexora]

In today's paper:

Asteroid passing close to Earth today – no need to worry

The space rock 2018 CB is up to 40m long and will come within 64,000km of the planet’s surface

An asteroid is headed our way – the second this week – but there’s no need to worry.

The newly discovered space rock will pass within 39,000 miles (63,000km) of Earth on Friday evening GMT. That’s less than one-fifth the distance to the moon.

Designated 2018 CB, the asteroid is an estimated 50ft to 130ft (15 meters to 40 meters) in size, possibly bigger than the one that exploded over Russia five years ago this month.

The manager of Nasa’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies, Paul Chodas, said asteroids this size usually don’t come this close – just once or twice a year.

While Friday’s close approach isn’t a huge deal, Chodas said in an email “it is a reminder that asteroids can pass very close to our planet and it’s important that we find these objects when they do get close”.

It will be the second time this week an asteroid buzzes Earth. On Tuesday, an asteroid passed within 114,000 miles (183,000km), slightly more than halfway to the moon.

Both of this week’s asteroids were discovered on 4 February by astronomers at the Nasa-funded Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona. Last year, more than 2,000 previously unknown near-Earth asteroids were discovered, according to Chodas.

A whopper asteroid named Apophis – estimated at approximately 1,000 feet or more than 300 meters – will pass at just one-tenth the distance between Earth and the moon in 2029. In the meantime, astronomers are on the lookout for asteroids lurking in the cosmic shadows.

“These asteroids are simply too small to be detected until they get really close to our planet,” he wrote.

That was the case at Chelyabinsk, Russia on 15 February 2013; the incoming object – an intense fireball as it entered the atmosphere – caught everyone by surprise.

Source

[Namcot]

In 8 hours and 49 minutes, it’s supposed to pass by Earth and miss it by 124,619 miles.

I better go open that bottle of vodka I bought the other week, just in case it doesn’t miss Earth!

http://weather.com/science/space/news/2018-05-15-asteroid-pass-earth-close-watch

The government will protect us! They are ready for it!

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[LongTimeLu]

There have been multiple strikes in the past and we're still here.
A bad one will cause plenty discomfort for a while. A minor one would be a tragedy.
One of the size that created the moon would send us back to microbial soup.


I was reading some of Graham Hancock's ideas about a bad strike 12,000 years ago that put the then civilisation back to the stone age and is reflected in many prehistoric myths. And then came his doom-mongering 'It's going to happen again!'

I don't believe in asteroid 'planet killers' after four billion years of them being mopped up.
Comets and objects from outside our little system however are more unpredictable.

The second data release from Gaia has tracked more objects than ever and even shown that there are wandering black holes in the galaxy so you can be sure if one of those happens by it'll get interesting.

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