Space Rubbish Take asteroids, add in an upgrade system and more realistic rock fracturing and you get the frantic experience of Space Rubbish. (Flash)
posted by boo_radley
on Jun 13, 2011 -
19 comments
The
nuclear weapons simulator at CarlosLabs
(previously) has been updated to include fallout wind drift, pressure and thermal events to evaluate the impact of everything from a suitcase nuke to the
Tsar Bomba on your city. The
Missile Range Tool can show if you are in the vicinity of any delivery systems currently in service, or compare your location to the range of those used historically, such as the V2. For the effects of the cosmic collisions of asteroids and comets (and featuring rather more science) there's the
Earth Impact Effects Program.
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul
on Nov 1, 2010 -
41 comments
The Atlantic has an
interesting article about the high probability of "space rocks" hitting the earth, possibly as high as a 1 in 10 chance of a major catastrophe each century. Not a new theme, but the article has some new developments suggesting it is more common than once thought. Includes a 10 minute video.
posted by stbalbach
on May 30, 2008 -
19 comments
Enough bad news, enough gloom and doom. You remember that
Asteroid 99942 Apophis that we were afraid might hit Earth in 2029? Ain't gonna happen. But it will get close enough for Earth's gravity to alter its orbit and there's a chance it could hit the next time around in 2036.
But only a tiny chance: "
less than 1 in 45,000 using standard dynamical models". according to NASA. Oh wait... NASA just got
skooled by a 13-year-old German Astronomy Geek who says the chances are more like
1 in 450. Still a tiny chance, and the official numbers were only off
by a factor of 100. Oh yeah, we're doomed.
posted by wendell
on Apr 16, 2008 -
60 comments
There's a slight chance that
an asteroid could impact Mars at the end of this month. Usually, collisions between heavenly bodies have vanishingly small odds (a million to one, say), but the chances on this one have been steadily improving, from 350-to-1 to 75-to-1 to
25-to-1 (link to Washington Post). Scientists say that this could be comprable to the famous
Tunguska blast in Siberia a hundred years ago (not to be confused with
this other Tunguska blast).
[more inside]
posted by math
on Jan 7, 2008 -
37 comments
NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory
recently detected [reg required] the largest explosion ever detected in the universe: an eruption releasing the energy of hundreds of millions of
gamma ray bursts. Just to put it in perspective, a single
GRB releases enough radiation to
wipe out just about everything human beings would require for survival in a 1000 light year radius. (The Milky Way spans ~100,000 light years, while the
United Federation of Planets spans about 8,000). Arthur C. Clarke has gone so far as suggesting that GRBs might be one of the reasons for Extra-Terrestrial silence:
Gamma Ray Bursts are so large and inescapable, a single one would wipe out even an enormous galactic empire. Makes
killer asteroids seem downright
quaint.
posted by absalom
on Jan 8, 2005 -
24 comments
Near Earth Objects A newly discovered 1.2 km wide asteroid has been given a Torino hazard rating of 1. Astronomers will continue to observe the space rock carefully to determine its orbit more accurately.
[link via BBC Radio 5]<
posted by Frasermoo
on Sep 2, 2003 -
15 comments
An asteroid the size of a football field just missed the Earth last Friday. Coming in fast out of the sun, where we ain't watching, it missed us by an astro-paltry 75,000 miles (a third the distance to the Moon). If it had hit, the impact would have been about 10 megatons -- not a planet-killer, but enough to spoil your picnic.
In related news, Attorney General Ashcroft arrested a box of moon rocks and the entire staff of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA for questioning. The director of the Office of Orbital Security was at a pro-am golf tournament in Fond du Lac, WI and unavailable for a statement.
posted by anser
on Jun 20, 2002 -
39 comments
Duck! An asteroid large enough to wipe out a country that was discovered a month ago will pass less than twice the Moon's distance from the earth. Meanwhile the British have selected a site for their
near Earth object information centre. Hopefully they will have a direct line to Bruce Willis, just in case.
posted by homunculus
on Jan 6, 2002 -
23 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
NEAR shoemaker lands and survives. The NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft touched down on a barren space rock called Eros on Monday, in history’s first attempt to land an object on an asteroid. Scientists said the probe still appeared to be sending signals back to Earth after making contact, hinting that the car-sized probe survived the descent. The speed at impact was between 1.5-1.8 m/s. This marks the first time that a US spacecraft was the first to land on another body of the solar system. And, if the server is back up, it's worth checking out
the project's website.
posted by warhol
on Feb 12, 2001 -
11 comments
Armageddon in 30 years? Okay, so maybe hyped up a bit, but there's a 1:500 chance that whatever's out there might hit us. For now scientists don't know if it's really an asteroid, or just some leftover shuttle parts. [via SlashDot]
posted by hobbes
on Nov 4, 2000 -
3 comments
