World might end in 2029...
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According to Discovery Channel, Popular Mechanics, Space.com, and now MSN, we're going to closely dodge a bullet in 2029 and again 5 years later one will come even closer.
http://men.msn.com/articlepm.aspx?cp-documentid=1628365>1=8991
Friday the 13th of April 2029 could be a very unlucky day for planet Earth. At 4:36 am Greenwich Mean Time, a 25-million-ton, 820-ft.-wide asteroid called 99942 Apophis will slice across the orbit of the moon and barrel toward Earth at more than 28,000 mph. The huge pockmarked rock, two-thirds the size of Devils Tower in Wyoming, will pack the energy of 65,000 Hiroshima bombs -- enough to wipe out a small country or kick up an 800-ft. tsunami.
On this day, however, Apophis is not expected to live up to its namesake, the ancient Egyptian god of darkness and destruction. Scientists are 99.7 percent certain it will pass at a distance of 18,800 to 20,800 miles. In astronomical terms, 20,000 miles is a mere stone's throw, shorter than a round-trip flight from New York to Melbourne, Australia, and well inside the orbits of Earth's many geosynchronous communications satellites. For a couple of hours after dusk, people in Europe, Africa and western Asia will see what looks like a medium-bright star creeping westward through the constellation of Cancer, making Apophis the first asteroid in human history to be clearly visible to the naked eye. And then it will be gone, having vanished into the dark vastness of space. We will have dodged a cosmic bullet.
Maybe. Scientists calculate that if Apophis passes at a distance of exactly 18,893 miles, it will go through a "gravitational keyhole." This small region in space -- only about a half mile wide, or twice the diameter of the asteroid itself -- is where Earth's gravity would perturb Apophis in just the wrong way, causing it to enter an orbit seven-sixths as long as Earth's. In other words, the planet will be squarely in the crosshairs for a potentially catastrophic asteroid impact precisely seven years later, on April 13, 2036.
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Dude thats bullshit. I've read probably 20 different stories of shit just like this. Kinda like the one that said in the year 2000 when the new millenium hits we will all be without power or something like that. Its just trying to stir shit up.
3 things i couldn't live without.........
:3gears: -> :drink: -> :poon: -
youngin2nr wrote:
Dude thats bullshit. I've read probably 20 different stories of shit just like this. Kinda like the one that said in the year 2000 when the new millenium hits we will all be without power or something like that. Its just trying to stir shit up.
Yup, but it only takes one time for it to matter. Your response reminds me of the people in New Orleans before Katrina. I work with about 15 hotels in east Texas. Every time a hurricane came close to New Orleans, all our hotels would fill with people from N.O. Still, plenty of people stayed each time with the "It won't hit us, they've said this 20 times before" attitude. Then the big one hit and the people with your attitude were screwed. It could happen. -
we'll have the technology by then to blow one up.
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STiSchucky wrote:
we'll have the technology by then to blow one up.If the dice do land the wrong way in 2029, Apophis would have to be deflected by some 5000 miles to miss the Earth in 2036. Hollywood notwithstanding, that's a feat far beyond any current human technology. The fanciful mission in the 1998 movie Armageddon -- to drill a hole more than 800 ft. into an asteroid and detonate a nuclear bomb inside it -- is about as technically feasible as time travel. In reality, after April 13, 2029, there would be little we could do but plot the precise impact point and start evacuating people.
This is a little more realistic than Y2K too. Y2K was a guess, this is a known comet with a known orbit and plenty of computer projections putting it on this path.
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From what i had read NASA is still gathering data on its course and wont know for sure till it passes the earth on its next orbit. There were many options to move it just enough to get it to miss. None of them had anthing to do with blowing it up though.
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heath wrote:
From what i had read NASA is still gathering data on its course and wont know for sure till it passes the earth on its next orbit. There were many options to move it just enough to get it to miss. None of them had anthing to do with blowing it up though.Correct, blowing it up (especially when its close to earth) is worse than letting it hit. Either way, there is little that I can personally do to change the outcome of this comets path so rather than worry about it constantly, I plan to live my life like I always have.
:icon_joker:DRUNK!:icon_joker:
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