2012 LZ1 to pass within 14 Lunar distances tonight

[statickid]

i was referring to the stone age in the context of the ages being named for their most important material, like, stone age, copper age, bronze age, and iron age. now it would be the scrap tech age. ahahha i was actually picturing hilarious car part armor and a sword club made from bike sprockets. i guess i was picturing something like water world...

[NovaSilisko]

Quote:

Originally Posted by T.Neo

 You seem fairly sure of those statements- do you have any scientific evidence or reason to back them up?

I have to say, this statement right here is the sort of thing that defines you, Neo

[C3PO]

Quote:

Originally Posted by statickid

  i guess i was picturing something like water world...

Hollywood rarely manages to depict the past with any degree of accuracy, so I doubt they'll have more success getting the future spot on.

[orb]

Universe Today: Recent Earth-Passing Asteroid is Much Bigger Than Originally Estimated:

Quote:

An asteroid that recently passed by Earth is about twice as large as originally estimated, and it would have had serious global consequences if it had impacted Earth. Asteroid 2012 LZ1 was only discovered on June 10, 2012 by Rob McNaught at the Siding Spring Observatory in Australia. This Near Earth Object was thought to be fairly large, 502 meters (1,650 feet) wide, and quite bright. But astronomers using the planetary radar system at Arecibo Observatory were able to better determine the asteroid’s size, rotation rate and shape and found it to be about 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) wide and actually quite dark.

Scientists consider a kilometer-wide asteroid is at the size threshold that could set off an extinction-level event if it were to hit Earth.

“This object turned out to be quite a bit bigger than we expected, said Dr. Ellen Howell from Arecibo, “which shows how important radar observations can be, because we’re still learning a lot about the population of asteroids.”

{...}

SpaceRef: Asteroid 2012 LZ1 Twice As Big As First Believed

Discovery News: Asteroid 2012 LZ1 Just Got Supersized

SPACE.com: Surprise! Big Asteroid That Flew By Earth Larger Than Thought

Discover Magazine - Bad Astronomy: Near-Earth asteroid twice as big as previously thought

[Gerdih]

Hell 1 km.. and we don't have any tech to avoid this potential danger.

[boogabooga]

Another month, another newly discovered asteroid getting very close.

2012 TC4, within 1 lunar distance:

http://news.yahoo.com/house-size-ast...151703970.html

[Codz]

Here's a live view of it.
http://www.virtualtelescope.eu/webtv/

[Quick_Nick]

1/4 lunar distance in fact! (?)

[N_Molson]

Quote:

A meteor can't destroy knowledge.

Until the 7th-8th century AD and the arabic invasions, knowledge, in western europe, was written on papyrus imported from Egypt. It was very cheap, but even handled with care, it was destroyed after 1 generation. So all the books had to be copied each generation. Which obviously led to a "selection" with time. 80% of the antique litteracy was lost not because of invasions, or library fires, but because nobody took care of copying it.

It shows how fast massive amounts of writing knowledge can be lost. Parchment (goat skin) and finally paper were a clear progress, as in some libraries you still have genuine books from the 9th century AD.

The latest revolution is clearly numerical supports ; if kept in a sealed box, they can last almost forever. The problem is that, found 2000 years later, a CD or a HDD would probably be a complete mystery to archeologist ("they probably depicted their god as a flat shiny disc with a hole inside, which was obviously a reference to the structure of the galaxy !"). Also consider that everything on Wikipedia, websites, and then servers, can easily be wiped out (well, 99% of it, assuming that some military bunkers have highly shielded servers) by a nuclear war, a massive and unexpected solar EM flare, the destruction of the big power transformers (which are extremely valuable things and very long to manufacture), etc...

Quote:

Another month, another newly discovered asteroid getting very close.

Watch out for the 12-12-12

[Keatah]

dude that's not even 2x geosynchronous orbit!! What else is gonna happen?

But to be fair, how many close encounters did the earth have in the past? Stuff we never saw because of lack of instrumentation..

[fsci123]

Well if an asteroid >500m did hit earth it would cause a massive decay in advanced industry... But i would suspect some people may still have computers and ipods. Ak 47s will still be used. And global communication could be easily reestablished.

[boogabooga]

2007 PA8 passes within 17 lunar distances, imaged by radar:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/49714613.../#.UJsOTOTWIdU

[boogabooga]

Big one tonight!

4179 Toutatis, 5 km diameter, to pass within about 18 lunar distances tonight.
http://news.yahoo.com/huge-asteroid-...141514589.html

[MattBaker]

Quote:

Originally Posted by boogabooga

 Big one tonight!

4179 Toutatis, 5 km diameter, to pass within about 18 lunar distances tonight.
http://news.yahoo.com/huge-asteroid-...141514589.html

And this little probe () passing the passerby.
Would surely be an interesting target in 100 years, Earth-crosser, Mars-crosser, aphelion is not far away from Jupiter...