Near miss! Asteroid as strong as 15 atomic bombs whizzes past earth

Wow, a 50 metre asteroid came close to the Earth last night and astronomers hadn't picked it up until Monday of this week.

The planet had a lucky escape from calamity as an asteroid as powerful as 15 atomic bombs whizzed past Earth last night, coming closer than the orbit of the moon.

Astronomers first spotted the cigar-shaped rock spinning through space on Monday evening and tracked it through the atmosphere.

The asteroid came within 220,00 miles from the Earth, but that in relative terms is a near miss.

The frightening thing is, how many more asteroids are heading our way and may not be noticed until a few days before potential impact?

Thank goodness for all the investment made in technology enabling Astronomers to pick these things up and giving us plenty of notice to prepare. Not!!

Link: travel.aol.co.uk...

A quick search brings up this

- Phoenix

reply to post by phoenix_zephyr


Thanks for that. I did a search as I wouldn't want to duplicate threads. This new all singing all dancing search facility is great.

we need to get some kind of defence soon

Interesting. Last night on my way home from a shoot, I saw what I thought was a meteor burning up in the sky and tried to shoot it. My shots don't do it justice, but was THAT what I saw? An asteroid? Or maybe some trash it was dragging that did enter the atmosphere?? Neat!

Okay so hear me out... everyone knows how our magnetic field is going to sh*t. what if it's supposed go down to protect us from asteroids which may be attracted to the earth's magnetic field. In other words if our magnetic field didn't suck... WE'D ALL BE DEAD BY NOW.

Perhaps there is sum correlation between the Earth's declining magnetic field and comet Elenins approach!

reply to post by Cobaltic1978


They always liken the impact of an asteroid to an atomic bomb. In this case 15 Atomic bombs, but that doesn't prove any scale of disaster because what are we talking Hiroshima size A-Bomb? Suitcase size A-bomb? If it did impact earth then would we see an entire country blown to bits? or would we be talking about a a half dozen broken trees in the forest?

You know we supposedly have so many professional and semi professionals here on ATS, or at least they type the talk, so I am wondering when they are going to really prove themselves by giving ATS a heads up on stuff like this before it happens so we can all collectively freak out together instead of hearing about these doomsday scenarios in past tense? It really does take the adrenaline rush out of things when you find out after the fact. I did wake REALLY pissed off last night, maybe that was my intuition about it? Humm.

Am I mistaken or was this the closest we have ever had? Why did it not make any kind of disruptions to our energy fields or did it?

The comet came within 220,00 miles from the Earth, but that in relative terms is a near miss.

reply to post by Cobaltic1978


It wasn't a comet. It was an asteroid. There is a difference.

Originally posted by IndieA

The comet came within 220,00 miles from the Earth, but that in relative terms is a near miss.

reply to post by Cobaltic1978

 

It wasn't a comet. It was an asteroid. There is a difference.

edit on 16-4-2011 by IndieA because: puncuation

Of course, my bad. I guess I had comets on my mind at the time. I do know the difference, but thanks for pointing out.

We seem to always have a lot of "near misses", I would like to think someone or something out there is busy.

reply to post by ISis12RA12ELohim


I remember hearing, several months ago about a near miss that the public didn't find out about until after it happened. It would be interesting to see a list of all the times this type of thing has happened.

Originally posted by IndieA
reply to post by ISis12RA12ELohim

 

I remember hearing, several months ago about a near miss that the public didn't find out about until after it happened. It would be interesting to see a list of all the times this type of thing has happened.

Yup, it sure would. I remember watching a documentary a while back about a meteorite that actually impacted (I think it was only the size of a small car).
They spotted it with about 48 hrs to spare and according to the program the President was even informed (I think Obama was just in). After some last minute number crunching they surmised that it was going to land in an isolated part of Africa, so did'nt bother to inform the public. Well, not until after the meteorite impacted.