[quote]An asteroid measuring 50 meters in diameter has a slim chance of hitting Earth in 2098, according to a recent finding by the international consortium Panoramic Survey Telescope & Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS).
Chen Wen-ping, project director of Taiwan’s team in the multinational group and professor of National Central University’s Graduate Institute of Astronomy, said Sept. 27 the object is likely to come very close to the Earth’s surface in 2098 without actually hitting it.
The object, designated 2010 ST3, was discovered Sept. 16 by Pan-STARRS’s first telescope PS1 located in Hawaii. It is the first asteroid the PS1 team has found and labeled as “potential hazardous object” since the telescope began full-time observations mid-May of this year.
“The asteroid is likely to burn up and break up into pieces if it slams into the Earth’s atmosphere,” he said. “But even if it does not hit our planet, its explosive shock waves can destroy an area of hundreds of square kilometers in size.”
Given years of warning in advance, Chen said it should be possible to organize a space mission to cause the asteroid to deviate from its projected path before it comes too close to Earth.
[/quote] taiwantoday.tw/ct.asp?xItem=119660&ctNode=445
Bet Taiwan can get the ODM for that mission… Move over, Bruce.
Wait a minute, how come Taiwan’s central University releases this data? haven’t they learned from NASA to keep quiet? They will strike the ire of the aliens living on the dark side of the Moon -not much after they were nuked but who knows?
The fact that this report is coming out of sensationalist-media Taiwan doesn’t inspire much confidence in me in the reliability of the report. It says “slim chance”, but what’s the probability? I don’t see it in the report.
What scientists tracking newly discovered near-Earth asteroids do is take a number of measurements over time, then publish the probabilities.
[quote]An asteroid measuring 50 meters in diameter has a slim chance of hitting Earth in 2098, according to a recent finding by the international consortium Panoramic Survey Telescope & Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS).
Chen Wen-ping, project director of Taiwan’s team in the multinational group and professor of National Central University’s Graduate Institute of Astronomy, said Sept. 27 the object is likely to come very close to the Earth’s surface in 2098 without actually hitting it.
The object, designated 2010 ST3, was discovered Sept. 16 by Pan-STARRS’s first telescope PS1 located in Hawaii. It is the first asteroid the PS1 team has found and labeled as “potential hazardous object” since the telescope began full-time observations mid-May of this year.
“The asteroid is likely to burn up and break up into pieces if it slams into the Earth’s atmosphere,” he said. “But even if it does not hit our planet, its explosive shock waves can destroy an area of hundreds of square kilometers in size.”
Given years of warning in advance, Chen said it should be possible to organize a space mission to cause the asteroid to deviate from its projected path before it comes too close to Earth.
[/quote] taiwantoday.tw/ct.asp?xItem=119660&ctNode=445
Bet Taiwan can get the ODM for that mission… Move over, Bruce.
Wait a minute, how come Taiwan’s central University releases this data? haven’t they learned from NASA to keep quiet? They will strike the ire of the aliens living on the dark side of the Moon -not much after they were nuked but who knows? [/quote]
Taiwan, ODM, :roflmao: let someone else do the D and we’ll just OEM it.
[quote=“TainanCowboy”]As our “Carbon Credits” business has been such a success ($$$), Almas John and I will soon be offering “Asteroid 2098” insurance coverage.
We hope this will be met with the same enthusiasm as our Global Warming/Carbon Credit financial opportunities.[/quote]
TC, seeing as how you’re a climate specialist why was the air quality so bad down your way yesterday? I was down there on business yesterday and the whole region looked like Mexico City. Once we got back into the Taipei basin area the air cleared right up again.
I’m not worried at all. By then, the latest HTC Desire will have a GPS coordinated static laser beam fitted as standard, which will automatically track and destroy rogue asteroids if it has the correct app installed. Even Walt Disney will have one. I just hope Android Market has opened to paid apps by then though, as that could be the only hitch I’d imagine.
If you’re the type that likes to scare yourself, you can always go look here http://www.spaceweather.com/ for the list of near-Earth asteroids… they post the size and their predicted miss distance in lunar diameters… there are currently 1145 potentially-hazardous asteroids. More interesting to me, they have fantastic galleries of recent Northern Lights photos.
Personally, I think I’m way more likely to die getting hit by a scooter or other vehicle while walking here in Taipei… :aiyo:
Have I told you, my dear Julia, that in my early years I was run over 3 times here, once on a scooter, once on a bike, once on foot with my pets in tow?
Asteroids may be harder to avoid, but scooters are a’plenty.
