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Maybe we should stop worrying about global warming......
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Posted January 10, 2013 at 12:45AM
and concentrate on what could happen in 2036.
An asteroid measuring 270 metres across has just made what scientists call "a close approach" to earth. In 2029 its orbit will bring it within 22,000 miles of us, close enough for the earth's gravity to alter its orbit. Its precise path after that cannot be calculated now, but there is a small region of space that scientists call a keyhole, and if the asteroid passes through it during its 2029 approach it will come back and hit the earth on 13th April 2036.
The impact would apparently equate to 100 of the most powerful nuclear bombs all being detonated at once, forming a crater approximately 60 miles across. Most of the plant and animal life on earth would cease to exist within a couple of years, and survivors would be forced to lead a hunter-gatherer existence.
So, time to start stocking up on food and petrol - the usual drill when trouble threatens...or perhaps just keep calm and carry on.
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Posted January 10, 2013 at 11:14AM
...and you can make a fully serviceable Anderson shelter out of the empty cans.
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Posted January 10, 2013 at 11:28AM
"It is not that big surely they would be able to destroy it before it got this far."
Bruce Willis is the man for that.
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Posted January 10, 2013 at 11:34AM
How old will he be when called upon? is that why they keep raising the retirement age? ;)
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Posted January 10, 2013 at 11:42AM
Bruce Willis is the man for that.
He can't he did not survive the last one.
It is not really that big so would not need a massive explosion to destroy it.
If it keeps coming back it is going to get bigger and bigger probably and closer and closer.
Maybe the speed that it travels makes it harder to find and destroy.
But no doubt they are already working on ways of removing or deflecting it away from us.
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Posted January 10, 2013 at 12:47PM
I foresee the doomsayers working themselves up into a right old frenzy in 23 years time.
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Posted January 10, 2013 at 2:37PM
Data collected by telescopes during today's close approach are expected to refine the asteroid's orbit to the point where an impact in 2036 can be ruled out.
Phew! That's OK then, panic over.
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Posted January 10, 2013 at 4:05PM
It's interesting to see how we all assume that everything will be OK, and that this asteroid will miss us.
Yet in the past the earth has been hit many times by asteroids and meteorites.
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Posted January 10, 2013 at 4:50PM
About 4 months ago it looked as if I would not see 2014 and things are still uncertain, never mind 2029 or 2036. I shall almost certainly not be around by these dates but I hope that those who will be can think of clever ways of deflecting it. Maybe we could send up some folk not wanted here for a little trip if it is to miss us.(Who would they be, I wonder?)
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Posted January 10, 2013 at 7:04PM
Don't worry Ivan Yarkovsky will move it away from the Earth.
Fingers crossed :0)
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