Large Asteroid Just Misses Earth

[sp00nman]

By THOMAS WAGNER

.c The Associated Press

LONDON (June 20) - An asteroid the size of a soccer field narrowly missed the Earth by 75,000 miles - less than a third of the distance to the moon and one of the closest known approaches by objects of this size, scientists said Thursday.

``In the unlikely event the asteroid had struck Earth in a populated area, it would have caused considerable loss of life,'' said scientist Grant Stokes. ``The energy release would be of the magnitude of a large nuclear weapon.''

Stokes is the principal investigator for the Lincoln Near Earth Asteroid Research Project, whose New Mexico observatory spotted the object last week.

``It was a close shave,'' said another scientist, Brian Marsden of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass. His organization gathers information on all such encounters.

The asteroid was not detected until three days after it came close to the Earth on June 14. When such asteroids are detected, they are usually spotted well out in space when they are approaching or departing Earth.

The asteroid, provisionally named 2002 MN, was traveling at more than 23,000 mph when it was spotted, Stokes said in a phone interview from Lexington, Mass., where he is associate head of the aerospace division of MIT Lincoln Laboratory.

With a diameter of between 50 and 120 yards, the asteroid was about the size of a soccer field, which tend to be about 105 yards by 75 yards, Stokes said. The size of asteroids is estimated by measuring their brightness, without knowing their composition.

Although lightweight compared with some asteroids, 2002 MN was big enough to have caused devastation similar to the impact of one in Siberia in 1908. On that occasion, an asteroid that exploded above Tunguska flattened nearly 800 square miles of forest. The asteroid's air blast was believed to have done the damage, since no crater was found.

In general, damage on the ground depends on what an asteroid is made of, varying from solid metal to a loosely bound aggregate.

``Looking statistically at the asteroid population, maybe 50 times a year a 100-meter-class asteroid passes within a lunar distance of Earth,'' Stokes said. ``But only a handful of such asteroids that have penetrated the Moon's orbit have been spotted by asteroid search programs.''

Benny Peiser, an expert on near earth objects at Liverpool John Moore's University in England, agreed that most asteroids do not come so close, but noted the latest ``reminder'' comes as Britain tests telescopes on the Spanish island of La Palma to search for the objects.

``Such near misses do highlight the importance of detecting these objects,'' he said.

Currently, there is no dedicated program searching for objects of 2002 MN's size. NASA concentrates its efforts on bodies bigger than a one kilometer (.62 of a mile) across.

``NASA has a goal of discovering and obtaining good orbits for all the near earth objects with diameters larger than 1 kilometer,'' said Thomas Morgan, a scientist at NASA headquarters in Washington. ``Asteroids of this size could potentially destroy civilization as we know it.''

Such asteroids could theoretically hit Earth every million years, or at longer intervals.

Asteroids the size of 2002 MN are estimated to hit the Earth every 100 to several hundred years, causing local damage, but no disaster to civilization or the planet's ecosystem, Stokes said.

``It's something the public should know about, but shouldn't get nervous about,'' he said. ``Civilization has to get used to them on some level.''

06/20/02 22:14 EDT

Copyright 2002 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.

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(Got this one off of AOL. Very interesting information.)

[Timan Veteran]

scary as **** but its been posted before :(

[sp00nman]

Originally posted by unsanity

scary as **** but its been posted before :(

Oh, really? I'm sorry guys I never saw it... plus it seemed like relatively new news to me (since it just appeared as a headline online) so I thought maybe I was the first one. Got a link to the other thread?

[Glowstick]

The average chance to get killed by an asteroid in the next 5 minutes is 50%... Earth will be hit or won't be hit. Hey they didn't even notice the thing, if its course had been a lil' different, there would have been an impact, so what?

[hotrod]

Although lightweight compared with some asteroids, 2002 MN was big enough to have caused devastation similar to the impact of one in Siberia in 1908. On that occasion, an asteroid that exploded above Tunguska flattened nearly 800 square miles of forest. The asteroid's air blast was believed to have done the damage, since no crater was found.

Ummm........... THAT'S what!

[altezza Veteran]

I've never imagined how unsafe if the asteroid heading our way. But that news was indeed a worry for me :confused:

[Osiris]

ah well at least if an asteroid hits the earth itll take alot of innocent people with it, better then dying alone :)

[kahlan]

Lots of large asteroids barely miss earth every year. The one that has just passed us is one they've known about since around 1980 something, I believe.

[ahodes1]

One day its just not going to miss...

[astrokat]

Gee, remind me to thank the government for the warning we never received

[ahodes1]

Originally posted by astrokat

Gee, remind me to thank the government for the warning we never received

Remember that the government does really care about you :ponder:

[sp00nman]

Originally posted by astrokat

Gee, remind me to thank the government for the warning we never received

Yeah, and if people heard about an asteroid coming there would be so much chaos that they themselves might cause more damage to eachother than the actual rock.

[ahodes1]

Originally posted by sp00nman

Yeah, and if people heard about an asteroid coming there would be so much chaos that they themselves might cause more damage to eachother than the actual rock.

Sadly true...

[Apollo]

Originally posted by ahodes1

Remember that the government does really care about you :ponder:

LOL so so true! *sarcasm*

i think it may happen someday but probably not the next couple of decades... maybe someday... preferably when i'm already old that way i don't get to have a stupid old age!

[sp00nman]

Originally posted by ahodes1

Sadly true...

Yeah, it is. Some people believe that we the people should be informed about everything... I think there comes to a point where the public needs to be told and when not told. This would be a hard decision to make if an asteroid ever was to head toward earth. I mean, if they told the public we could all end up in riots and flames from our own devastation.

[JnCoKiLLa]

oh my god i see it its gonna kill us all

:evil:

[MulletRobZ]

Only 120 000 kilometres it missed us by? That's about 4 seconds! That was the closest to impact we have seen since humans existed 5 000 000 years ago. If this keeps up, I predict that we could all be killed by the end of 2015 at the earliest! :D

That would probably be a joke, but that's in comparison to the 1930's asteroid that missed Earth by 20 seconds or about 700 000 kilometres.

[Tesseract]

What about Dec 21, 2012? Something (asteroid) may happen then.

[Borg77]

Originally posted by codyg11

What about Dec 21, 2012? Something (asteroid) may happen then.

Yes, something may happen then but an asteroid can happen anytime anywhere. That date may have something else in store according the ancient Mayans.

[aem4162]

Earth is going to get hit sooner or later and we really can't do anything about it. Get used to it and get on with your life.

:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D

anita

[MulletRobZ]

I heard a really big asteroid was supposed to hit the Earth on October 2028! :D

[redrope]

What kind of defense plan can ou have for a rock the size of Rhode Island heading towards earth at 25000 mph?

[sp00nman]

Originally posted by redrope

What kind of defense plan can ou have for a rock the size of Rhode Island heading towards earth at 25000 mph?

Well for all we know we dont have one... obviously we need to come up with something. Some of the ideas in those movies weren't that bad but they were risky.

[unimatrixzer0]

Originally posted by ahodes1

Remember that the government does really care about you :ponder:

lmao

[Brains]

where does this 2028 idea come from? I seem to remember it was in 800y and Asteroid would pass really, really close...

@webgrapph: 5.000.000 years ago seems like a lot to go back to for Homo Sapiens... right?