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Giant Asteroid to hit the Earth on 11/9?

danarhea

Slayer of the DP Newsbot
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Yes, and Elvis Presley will be driving it....

OK, with that nonsense out of the way, Asteroid YU55 is going to come pretty damn close, if you consider 175,000 miles close. If you live in the US, and have a telescope, or even a good pair of binoculars, you will get a thrill, as the asteroid passes by. This is the good news.

The bad news? Every conspiracy freak and lunatic is coming out of the woodwork, and predicting the end of the world as we know it. Go to Youtube and you will see all kinds of stuff about Planet X, Planet Nibiru, the Mayan calender prediction that 2012 is here, and all kinds of neat stuff that will scare your pants off, if you are not aware of what's really happening, or will make you laugh your pants off, if you are.

To compound the big scare is the fact that our government is holding a disaster drill that day, and FEMA trucks are all over the roads, which helps to account for the explosion of conspiracy nuts on Youtube this week. OK, nice job, Mr. President. Happy Halloween to you too, albeit a week late. LOL.

Here is a little something, based on science, not scary creepy random thoughts, that you will enjoy.
 
Yes, and Elvis Presley will be driving it....

OK, with that nonsense out of the way, Asteroid YU55 is going to come pretty damn close, if you consider 175,000 miles close. If you live in the US, and have a telescope, or even a good pair of binoculars, you will get a thrill, as the asteroid passes by. This is the good news.

The bad news? Every conspiracy freak and lunatic is coming out of the woodwork, and predicting the end of the world as we know it. Go to Youtube and you will see all kinds of stuff about Planet X, Planet Nibiru, the Mayan calender prediction that 2012 is here, and all kinds of neat stuff that will scare your pants off, if you are not aware of what's really happening, or will make you laugh your pants off, if you are.

To compound the big scare is the fact that our government is holding a disaster drill that day, and FEMA trucks are all over the roads, which helps to account for the explosion of conspiracy nuts on Youtube this week. OK, nice job, Mr. President. Happy Halloween to you too, albeit a week late. LOL.

Here is a little something, based on science, not scary creepy random thoughts, that you will enjoy.

That's because Youtube, and before it, GoogleVideo is the haven for conspiracy theorists.
 
"Lets just say the asteroid goes off course"

When the loonies hear this they all go nuts!
 
Yes, and Elvis Presley will be driving it....

OK, with that nonsense out of the way, Asteroid YU55 is going to come pretty damn close, if you consider 175,000 miles close. If you live in the US, and have a telescope, or even a good pair of binoculars, you will get a thrill, as the asteroid passes by. This is the good news.

The bad news? Every conspiracy freak and lunatic is coming out of the woodwork, and predicting the end of the world as we know it. Go to Youtube and you will see all kinds of stuff about Planet X, Planet Nibiru, the Mayan calender prediction that 2012 is here, and all kinds of neat stuff that will scare your pants off, if you are not aware of what's really happening, or will make you laugh your pants off, if you are.

To compound the big scare is the fact that our government is holding a disaster drill that day, and FEMA trucks are all over the roads, which helps to account for the explosion of conspiracy nuts on Youtube this week. OK, nice job, Mr. President. Happy Halloween to you too, albeit a week late. LOL.

Here is a little something, based on science, not scary creepy random thoughts, that you will enjoy.

Actually I think Obama is supposed to declare war that day and it will be the beginning of Armageddon. Are you sure it's really a comet, and not the four horse men preparing for the coming of Jesus to defeat the anti Christ you elected for president?
 
Actually I think Obama is supposed to declare war that day and it will be the beginning of Armageddon. Are you sure it's really a comet, and not the four horse men preparing for the coming of Jesus to defeat the anti Christ you elected for president?

I didn't vote for Obama. I voted for Satan. I figure that, if you have to vote for a politician, you might as well go all the way. LOL.
 
Actually I think Obama is supposed to declare war that day and it will be the beginning of Armageddon. Are you sure it's really a comet, and not the four horse men preparing for the coming of Jesus to defeat the anti Christ you elected for president?
Common. If you really want to make the conspiracy sound good at least add in some...

"THERE IS NO COMET!! IT IS A NEW SPACE MISSLE SYSTEM PIGGY BACKING ONTO THIS NEWS!!!!"

or

"Obama is summoning the comets with the particle accelerator!!!"

or

"Its not a comet obama just bought his woman a new moon. Its being shipped as we speak."
 
"Lets just say the asteroid goes off course"

When the loonies hear this they all go nuts!

Asteroids are prone to sudden cravings for ice cream. This happens regularly.
 
Damn. I always knew I'd die on my birthday. Last year I nearly did, but this year it's gonna be the real deal! I saw it on YouTube!

Bye, guys! It's been real! :D :D :D
 
Damn. I always knew I'd die on my birthday. Last year I nearly did, but this year it's gonna be the real deal! I saw it on YouTube!

Bye, guys! It's been real! :D :D :D

Massive four day orgy is the only answer.
 
When it's time, it's time. Why stress over it?
 
Below is a link for 2005 YU55, JPL Small-Body Database Browser:

JPL Small-Body Database Browser

It does appear to be a wee bit close to us on the ninth.
 
Right, and how often has the moon hit the earth?

The moon orbits the earth,so unless something happens to the moon it is never going to hit the earth. The asteroid does not orbit around the earth and the youtube video did say there was a small chance it could hit the earth. Besides that the OP was talking about 175,000 miles being far.
 
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The moon orbits the earth,so unless something happens to the moon it is never going to hit the earth. The asteroid does not orbit around the earth and the youtube video did say there was a small chance it could hit the earth. Besides that the OP was talking about 175,000 miles being far.

Well it is pretty far, especially when you consider the asteroid is only 1/4 mile in diameter.
 
Question: Will the asteroid, as small as it is, exert gravitational or similar force upon the Earth? If so, how long would such force take to register and how significant could it be?
 
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Asteroids are prone to sudden cravings for ice cream. This happens regularly.


Whew! Now I'm glad the Baskin-Robbins in town closed down...
 
Question: Will the asteroid, as small as it is, exert gravitational or similar force upon the Earth? If so, how long would such force take to register and how significant could it be?


Technically yes; pragmatically no. The asteroid is only 1300 feet across. It's gravitational field would be measured in 1/1000ths of one G. If you were standing on its surface, you might be in peril of achieving the asteroid's own escape velocity by jumping very hard. (IE fly off the surface and into space by jumping). I don't have the equations handy for calculating G from size/mass/density on hand or I'd tell you exactly.


Nope, no earthquakes or tsunami or anything like that, from a near-miss. It's way too small.


If it hit, it wouldn't be TEOTWAWKI. It would be pretty darn bad for somebody, but not a dino-killer or climate-wrecker, let alone a planet-killer.
 
The moon orbits the earth,so unless something happens to the moon it is never going to hit the earth. The asteroid does not orbit around the earth and the youtube video did say there was a small chance it could hit the earth. Besides that the OP was talking about 175,000 miles being far.

Well, it's not like 175,000 miles is a trip to the corner store, is it? :mrgreen:
 
Question: Will the asteroid, as small as it is, exert gravitational or similar force upon the Earth? If so, how long would such force take to register and how significant could it be?

Hey, bud... Thank you for the setup for my latest yo mama joke.

Yo mama is so fat that, if she were to jump into the Atlantic Ocean, she would create a bigger tide than a fly by from asteroid YU55. Come to think of it, so could my mama, and she was skinny. :mrgreen:
 
Hey, bud... Thank you for the setup for my latest yo mama joke.

Yo mama is so fat that, if she were to jump into the Atlantic Ocean, she would create a bigger tide than a fly by from asteroid YU55. Come to think of it, so could my mama, and she was skinny. :mrgreen:

What I found out was that if the distance between two objects decreases by a factor of 10, the gravitational influence exerted by each object upon the other would increase by a factor of 100. In the language of the physicist, the effect of gravitational force "varies inversely as the square of the distance". This principal is known as the inverse square law.

So, I guess, if the asteroid is 1/2 the distance from earth as the moon, then its mass would exert 4x's the force on the earth compared to the moon's mass (if they were the same size). If the moon is about 2,000 miles in diameter, and the asteroid is about 1/4 mile, then would the asteroid have 1/2000th of the gravitational effect upon the earth as the moon? I don't really know how the moon’s gravity affects the earth except as to tides and scenery. But, whatever it does, it will have a tiny bit more help.

Also, the moon is in constant orbit whereas the asteroid will be coming towards us and then going away. I don’t know if that kind of action in space has a correlating reaction or not.

If the ocean is 1.3 billion cubic kilometers, and the moon exerts enough force on it to move it, then would the asteroid exert enough force to move 650,000 cubic kilometers of water? What if, due to the nature of the difference of the approach, it might condense that same effect on less overall volume but with more potency? Instead of a redistribution, more of a big ripple in the water from a push.

How much water could your mama displace?

Please, if you read any of the above, know that I don't know anything about science or math - it's just a thought I had.
 
How much water could your mama displace?

:rofl Enough to make her a sizable force worthy of her own orbit?
 
What I found out was that if the distance between two objects decreases by a factor of 10, the gravitational influence exerted by each object upon the other would increase by a factor of 100. In the language of the physicist, the effect of gravitational force "varies inversely as the square of the distance". This principal is known as the inverse square law.

So, I guess, if the asteroid is 1/2 the distance from earth as the moon, then its mass would exert 4x's the force on the earth compared to the moon's mass (if they were the same size). If the moon is about 2,000 miles in diameter, and the asteroid is about 1/4 mile, then would the asteroid have 1/2000th of the gravitational effect upon the earth as the moon? I don't really know how the moon’s gravity affects the earth except as to tides and scenery. But, whatever it does, it will have a tiny bit more help.

Also, the moon is in constant orbit whereas the asteroid will be coming towards us and then going away. I don’t know if that kind of action in space has a correlating reaction or not.

If the ocean is 1.3 billion cubic kilometers, and the moon exerts enough force on it to move it, then would the asteroid exert enough force to move 650,000 cubic kilometers of water? What if, due to the nature of the difference of the approach, it might condense that same effect on less overall volume but with more potency? Instead of a redistribution, more of a big ripple in the water from a push.

How much water could your mama displace?

Please, if you read any of the above, know that I don't know anything about science or math - it's just a thought I had.


No, the asteroid is far too small. It's gravity is negligible.

Look the moon is around 2000 miles in diameter. The asteroid is less than a quarter mile in diameter. V= pi x R cubed. The moon's volume is about 3.1 billion cubic miles. The asteroid's volume is around 0.14 cubic mile. The moon is tens of BILLIONS of times more massive (assuming density is roughly the same) than the asteroid.

The 'roid's density will be somewhere between 1 and 8 tons per cubic meter. I forget what the moon's is, but it's in that range.

This asteroid's gravitational field could barely cause a tsunami in a BUCKET of water. Even if it hits, gravitational effects will be negligible. It could take out a city, sure... if it hit offshore maybe a whole coastline, at worst. But they dont think it is going to hit so it almost certainly won't.


175,000 miles is close in cosmic terms, but we've had plenty of asteroids come closer.


in the words of Tony Soprano, "Fuggetaboutit."
 
Nope, no earthquakes or tsunami or anything like that, from a near-miss. It's way too small.


If it hit, it wouldn't be TEOTWAWKI. It would be pretty darn bad for somebody, but not a dino-killer or climate-wrecker, let alone a planet-killer.

Actually it could be a very serious problem even at that size. People may be freaked at the idea, but the best outcome would probably be for it to hit land, obviously not a heavily-poplated area. Were it to hit water, especially a few dozens miles off a coastline, that could be a far more serious issue (see Deep Impact though at a somewhat smaller scale). Of course, it may break up from getting too close to the Earth's gravitational well or break apart in the atmosphere.
 
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