Comet Apophis flew to within 9 million miles of the Earth yesterday.
In 2029 it will come around again and get within 20,000 miles (closer than geosynchronous satellites). Then in 2036 it will approach again. At one time it was thought that it had a 3.5% chance flying through a specific keyhole of space in 2029, which would indicate that it would hit the Earth in 2036. But now the odds are calculated to be
infinitesimal.
Let's hope the astronomer assumptions are correct about that pesky
Yarkovsky Effect.
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posted by eye of newt
on Jan 10, 2013 -
32 comments
... it’s no exaggeration to say that LIFEFORCE tosses everything in but the kitchen in an attempt to entertain you. Actually, scratch that, it tosses everything including the kitchen sink. By the time the movie is complete, you may have to watch it again just to verify that you actually saw what you just saw. The movie is a mess of enormous proportions which I absolutely loved.* (previously) [more inside]
posted by Trurl
on Feb 6, 2012 -
59 comments
On May 23, 2007 a multi-disciplinary team of scientists
announced (YouTube, 70mins, 7-parts, part1-1 is a summary) the finding of physical evidence strongly suggesting that, around 12,900 years ago (10,900 BC), a massive Shoemaker-Levy type comet hit the atmosphere, air burst over the Great Lakes region of North America and probably engulfed much of the continent in a fireball and subsequent firestorm with catastrophic effects for life and climate.
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posted by stbalbach
on Oct 31, 2007 -
23 comments
This weekend, NASA will order the
Stardust spacecraft to jettison its 100-pound capsule that contains comet dust. The capsule will hurdle through earth’s atmosphere and make a soft landing in the Utah desert. Not directly connected to last summer’s
Deep Impact, Stardust’s mission is to bring comet debris back to earth for study. Here’s hoping we don’t need the
Wildfire lab.
posted by mania
on Jan 9, 2006 -
17 comments
What are you doing for
July 4th? I just found out I'll be
working. Our spacecraft
Swift is going to be observing comet
Tempel1 at the time of the
Deep Impact encounter. (Previous discussed
here on MeFi 2 years ago.) We'll probably have
images and movies first, but the first images you'll see after the encounter will likely come from either
JPL or
Hubble. You can't have
Penn State scooping
NASA.
Oh well, at least we will have a
barbecue at work to celebrate. Our acting Mission Director during this time is a great bloke from
MSSL. It is oddly appropriate to be celebrating the
Fourth with a person from the
UK.
posted by Fat Guy
on Jun 29, 2005 -
10 comments
Deep impact. NASA scientists want to know what the pristine inside of a comet looks like. What better way, then, than by blowing a 25-meter crater in one? Comet
Tempel 1, to be specific. Even better,
send them your name and they'll put it on a disc attached to the impactor spacecraft, which will be launched on December 30, 2004. It'll hit on the 4th of July, 2005.
posted by gottabefunky
on May 13, 2003 -
9 comments
Let us prepare for impact. A group of scientists is working on a standardized protocol for dealing with the possibility of a comet or massive asteroid striking the Earth, saying humans can do more than the dinosaurs ever could before a colossal impact precipitated their extinction 65 millions years ago.
"We have now overcome the giggle factor."
I don't know if we have........
posted by nonharmful
on May 7, 2001 -
24 comments
