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posted by cmn32480 on Monday June 26 2017, @05:02PM   Printer-friendly
from the time-to-get-off-this-rock dept.

The asteroid – named 441987 (2010 NY65) – is marked as a concern because it's 230 metres in diameter and travelling just 7.9 lunar distances (that's about three million km) from us.

[...] If it were to strike, its weight could impact with a force 300 times greater than the Hiroshima bomb, scientists have predicted.

2010 NY65 was discovered on July 10, 2010 by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) spacecraft and is expected to make yearly close approaches to Earth until 2022.

It might sound far-fetched, but experts have warned that an asteroid crash that would wipe out humanity could be imminent.

Dr Alan Fitzsimmons, speaking ahead of asteroid week this month, said there is currently nothing we can do to stop a large space rock heading our way – and the impact would be catastrophic.

Well, an asteroid impact is certainly one way to solve all our problems.


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  • (Score: 2) by nobu_the_bard on Monday June 26 2017, @05:35PM (8 children)

    by nobu_the_bard (6373) on Monday June 26 2017, @05:35PM (#531423)

    If we can't do anything to stop it, and aren't ready to get off the planet inside the next 12 months, who cares? Let it wipe us out. What does worrying about it accomplish?

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  • (Score: 2) by VLM on Monday June 26 2017, @05:53PM (2 children)

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Monday June 26 2017, @05:53PM (#531430)

    What does worrying about it accomplish?

    Because outside sensationalism,

    Let it wipe us out.

    is incredibly unlikely. Nothing is as stupid as a chicken and something enormously bigger only got "cool looking dinos" but their chicken and gator and modern reptile descendent/cousins did just fine.

    So there's plenty of time and effort to fight over immigrating to New Zealand or Wisconsin or some place anyway.

    300 nukes really isn't that much. We set off 100+ during the pre-atmospheric test ban treaty and nothing much happened. Admittedly 300 at once will be more exciting but in all honesty unless it hits you on the way down, it'll mostly just be remembered by the 90%+ of humanity that survives as a really crappy couple years. It'll be remembered like the influenza epidemic at the end of WWI that probably killed more people as a percentage. Most of you are asking "huh?" right now, that being my point.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 26 2017, @06:01PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 26 2017, @06:01PM (#531436)

      "influenza epidemic at the end of WWI that probably killed more people as a percentage"

      They were also giving people now-illegal dosages of aspirin, when they got sicker they would keep dosing them more and more, which causes the same symptoms as the pandemic...

    • (Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Tuesday June 27 2017, @01:46PM

      by hemocyanin (186) on Tuesday June 27 2017, @01:46PM (#531899) Journal

      The Tsar Bomba was a three-stage bomb with Trutnev-Babaev second and third stage design, with a yield of 50 megatons. This is equivalent to about 1,570 times the combined energy of the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 10 times the combined energy of all the conventional explosives used in World War II, one-quarter of the estimated yield of the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa, and 10% of the combined yield of all nuclear tests to date

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba#cite_note-15 [wikipedia.org]

      Yeah -- I doubt it would be a world ending event although it would suck for whatever local region it hit (from link above): "The heat from the explosion could have caused third-degree burns 100 km (62 mi) away from ground zero."

  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday June 26 2017, @06:09PM (2 children)

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday June 26 2017, @06:09PM (#531442)

    One mega-bomb dropped somewhere random won't wipe out mankind, but the (likely) tsunami would make for a hell of a rebuilding project.

    The fun part would be trying to evacuate places like the U.S. East coast if it were to strike in the North Atlantic, or Japan if it were in danger of Tsunami - because with a rock this big, we'd have months of warning before an ocean splashdown.

    --
    🌻🌻 [google.com]
    • (Score: 2) by ikanreed on Monday June 26 2017, @09:55PM (1 child)

      by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Monday June 26 2017, @09:55PM (#531583) Journal

      Keep in mind that the Castle Bravo test at Bikini Atoll was close to 1000x the hiroshima bomb and didn't make such a large tsunami as to make serious trouble for ocean-side cities. 300x is smaller than that.

      There's factors to consider like the depth of the water, resulting in different levels of displacement, but you shouldn't expect mass destruction.

      • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday June 27 2017, @03:15AM

        by JoeMerchant (3937) on Tuesday June 27 2017, @03:15AM (#531731)

        All depends on where/how it hits, any resulting undersea quakes and/or landslides, direct hit with a splash and crater, or glancing blow and airburst.

        Bikini Atoll pretty much tells a tale of why that wasn't much of a Tsunami generator - in shallow water, surrounded by reef...

        --
        🌻🌻 [google.com]
  • (Score: 2, Funny) by fustakrakich on Monday June 26 2017, @06:38PM (1 child)

    by fustakrakich (6150) on Monday June 26 2017, @06:38PM (#531455) Journal

    What does worrying about it accomplish?

    They want to find out how many atheists there really are.

    --
    La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
    • (Score: 2) by ikanreed on Monday June 26 2017, @10:01PM

      by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Monday June 26 2017, @10:01PM (#531588) Journal

      Plenty. Death is inevitable. Dull mechanical forces(such as the kinetic energy of a hunk of rock) of the universe dominate our existence.