Giant asteroid to make closest flyby of earth in recorded history

Giant asteroid to make closest flyby of earth in recorded history

15.02.05 1.00pm
By Steve Connor


A giant asteroid the size of three football pitches will make the closest flyby of Earth in recorded history for an object of its size, scientists said.

It will pass between the Earth and the Moon and will even come closer than the orbit of many telecommunications satellites, although astronomers insisted that there is little chance of a collision with the massive rock.

Anxious Earthlings need not worry too much for another 24 years, however, because asteroid 2004 MN4 is not due to make its closest approach to Earth until approximately 10pm London time on Friday 13th April 2029.

<snip>

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10011159

oh well, I thought it was three football fields at first.

So should people who don't understand sports metaphors be alarmed?

thus actually slightly longer than three 'Merkin (N.E. Patriots) football fields. Ouch.

I still wouldn't have understood, though.

They vary, you know.

;)

It would be roughly 360 feet by 540 feet. NOT a length of 1080 feet.

I guess we got nothing to be worried about.

ie diameter of a bit over 1000 feet.

http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/risk/2004mn4.html

The diameter is estimated from the brightness, assuming it is spherical and has an average albedo for asteroids.

at the French and Germans

how big is that? 150 yards?

What does that mean?

"Soccer Fields"

540x360 feet is something that size would probably devastate out to a 50-mil radius, but wouldn't be considred "gigantic".

One mile or more would be "gigantic" IMO.

that we usually don't detect these things until after they fly by.

Why can't we get lucky and get hit by one of these things?

The system won't be bankrupt until after Doomsday.

Maybe we can all cash-out our accounts in 2003 so we can "live it up" for a year.

...conspiracy thread?

You know it's all Bush's fault.

Will Earth break up 2004 MN4?
An asteroid buzzing past Earth in 2029 will come closer than expected — and may not survive intact.
Bill Cooke
February 10, 2005

<snip>

Now, radar measurements suggest MN4 will miss us by half that distance — and come so close Earth's gravity could rip it apart.
{I asked about this in a prior thread}

<snip>

But for 2004 MN4, the change in the miss distance was greater than the error computed in the December analyses. Put another way, 2004 MN4 is now outside the uncertainty box — the region astronomers thought would contain the object's most likely locations on April 13, 2029.

<snip>

But there's another reason for concern. According to Dan Durda, another SWRI astronomer, 2004 MN4 is likely to be a "rubble-pile" asteroid, consisting of material only loosely held together by gravity. Because the asteroid will pass us at just 2.5 times Earth's diameter, tidal forces could tear it apart. The result would be a trail of rocks drifting slowly apart with the passage of time. One or more of these might hit Earth in the more distant future, creating a spectacular fireball as it burns up in the atmosphere.

{HOPEFULLY burns up}

More:
http://www.astronomy.com/default.aspx?c=a&id=2874

Apparently, even if it completely misses, we could be hit with the debris in the 2030's.

Bush's policies will kill us all before then.

Another "sign" from God, according to those who claim to be privy to his will.

This has been discussed for a while and those "rapture" fanatics seem to have surged around the first time I remember hearing about this. this might even be the Rove kool-aid to preachers. "tThe end of the world is upon us, get your flock together and get them to support our "moral values" of living large until the end!"

They calculate the odds of one hitting us. I've had a creepy feeling about one hitting the moon. Do they ever do calculations on that?

A question from one not knowledgable in the action/reaction possibilities from a big collision of celestial bodies. Would an asteroid slamming into the moon have any effect on Earth?

It would completely alter the weather patterns here on Earth.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=228x3167


Closest Flyby of Large Asteroid to be Naked-Eye Visible
By Robert Roy Britt
Senior Science Writer
posted: 04 February 2005
01:31 pm ET


An asteroid expected to fly past Earth in 2029 will be visible to the naked eye, scientists projected Thursday.

It's a once-in-a-millennium event. And you may want to buy plane tickets now, as the flyby will be visible only from Europe, Africa and western Asia.

There has been no event like this in modern history. Some people have seen dramatic fireballs created by small space rocks blazing through Earth's atmosphere. And two house-sized asteroids have made closer passes. But they were not visible without telescopes.

The 2029 event will be the closest brush by a good-sized asteroid known to occur. The rock will pass Earth inside the orbits of some satellites. No other asteroid has ever been clearly visible to the unaided eye.

The asteroid is roughly estimated to be a little more than 1,000 feet (320 meters) wide.

http://www.space.com/spacewatch/050204_2004_mn4.html

Yikes.

*Cue creepy music.*

I'm hoping he just moved on to other things...

:cry:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=105&topic_id=2396568

37 years old. Geez, that's young.

seen any kind of pictures of it. don't we have telescopes out there that could give us a glimpse of the thing? I know it would probably just look like a shooting star or something but I'm weird about these things I guess!

I have "Doomsday" scheduled for 5:00 PM TO 7:00 PM Friday, April 13 2029.

It conflicts with one of my MeetUp groups.

I'll try to make sure I don't schedule anything else.

a twenty year vacation about now! why bother educating my children and such! What use are they going to have for an education? My husband works too hard and so do I for that matter. I sure as hell wouldn't be spending my time trying to fix this countries woes either. 2029 isn't all that far away.

On second thought, this administration is behaving as if this were true. I really don't see the need for asasinations and such but the out of control spending would be nice for my vacation. Put it all on credit, we'll never have to pay it back! Maybe I should consider that vacation!

http://www.raptureready.com/rap2.html

It’s at 152….anything above 145 is in the “Fasten your seat belts” arena….but no mention of an asteroid….maybe 2029 is too far down the road for their liking…:freak:

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just the type of thing I needed to hear about.

too close for comfort. Hopefully if it does hit us we won't ever know what hit us.........:nuke:

doesnt "recorded history" precede the ability to detect an invisible asteroid by a couple thousand years? so what are we talking about? I guess knowledge is a double-edged sword, so many benefits but it can cause us to jump to drastic conclusions.


on edit: i see the article mentions that it will be visible to the naked eye, but I think its awfully sensationalistic to say "closest in recorded history".

objects and extrapolate it back in time, but that still leaves objects we have no awareness of. Or as Rummy might say, the known unkowns?

Jeezus. Some poor grad student somewhere is having to plot out the trajectory of endless space objects that are identified only by a number, just in case one of them MAY come NEAR the Earth sometime in the next thousand years.

:wow:

thats a Omen!!!

be dead by then.