It's the End... Comet incoming
 

Heard this on a radio news broadcast the other day then googled it. It was reported in Pravda and is starting to get some pub.

A russian astronomer has spotted an inbound comet and according to his calculations we are in its projected trajectory. Projected impact date... late October 2006.

I was told by an acquaintance of mine that has a history in NEO research that while many are writing this off as another hoax...it is being looked at pretty seriously by the skywatcher community but lips are tight. Hmmmmm?

Quack material...or truth. You decide.

http://english.pravda.ru/science/earth/84913-0

Aztec and Mayan calendars end in 2012.

The one on my wall ends on October 31! We're f*cked!

If it hits us...... clearly it's the fault of George W.

Beat me to it. Pretty much every nut they have on COAST TO COAST AM cites 2012 as "the end of the world as we know it" :rolleyes: :D

Hmm, not publicized by any of the respected astrophysical news sources = not happening
That or it's all some big coverup, depends who you listen to ;)

Hi there...

Does this mean I don't have to make the car payment?

I'll bet you a $1000 it doesn't create any major problems if it does hit.

That cute crater in Az was supposedly comet-caused.

No, not the Grand Canyon...

so here's a question for you all should something of enormous magnitude hits earth.....
what are you going to do?
if something that large happens i can only imagine how crazy the population is going to respond, people do stupid things when they're hungry.
the key to survival is going to be to get away from the population and the dependency of infrastructure (gas/supermarkets/utilities).
look what happened when part of the US lost power for a few days....people were freaking out like it was the end of the world....when in fact they simply couldn't watch sienfeld or fill up their gas tanks to go to mcdonald's.
imagine when the end of the modern world is actually upon us.

remember.....soylent green is made of people.

:D

Move in with Fastpat.

won't be able to copy/paste when there is no internet :D

You may be confusing comet and asteroid?

Isn't a comet and an asteroid pretty similar? Maybe different size, and a comet emits gases which you see as the comet's tail which an asteroid doesn't. I imagine a strike by either will leave a mark.

Someone tell me if I've been smoking the wrong (or right) stuff.

I half overheard on NPR of a scientist who was credited with the "simple" solution to this potential scenario.

His claim was that the space shuttle or equivalent could rendevouz with said asteroid/comet and position itself thusly. With thrust rockets or whatever to position the shuttle ass-facing the rock, allow the gravitational pull of the mass to pull it downward. At the correct moment, engine(s) fire. The forward thrust is throttled just enough to offset the gravitational pull. The result is the shuttle will then accelerate just fast enough to balance the gravitational pull and tow the comet in whatever direction the shuttle wants to travel. All it would take is a minute change in course at some gazillion mile distance to offset the original course.

Who needs Bruce Willis and his cowboy crew now?

So what do the forum scientists and Howard Johnson residents think of this? Doable or do we just nuke the hell out of whatever moves our way in outer space?

Sherwood

Yeah. Could be. It happened so long ago. All I remember is it was really cold afterward.

As usual, television has already solved this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Big_Piece_of_Garbage

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...of_Garbage.jpg

Where to begin?

The Shuttle is only capable of low earth orbit. Once it gets to low earth orbit, it has only enough fuel for re-entry. To accomplish what would need to be done, you don't need much of a push, the farther away you start. But you need to start multiple million miles away to use a push to get it to miss. It all depends on the size of the Asteroid or comet.

dude, don't be so negative, the shuttle can go refuel at the space station, Exxon will send up a minimum wage fuelstation attendant to operate it...

besides, this "we gonna die end of this month" crap was all done earlier this year, by that frenchie

http://www.savelivesinmay.com/

who has misteriously gone silent somewhere in june following a statement that the US governement , avoided the disaster by cancelling the premtive nuke strike policy or something...

it was quite the laugh

The earlier an effort is made to alter the orbit of an object with an path that intersects Earths the less energy is required to alter the orbit enough to miss because only a small change in velocity is needed. Conversely the closer it is the more energy is needed because a larger <FONT FACE="SYMBOL">D</FONT> v is called for. I read the study youare reffering to it is valid, the gravitational pull of a shuttle if efffected early enough could work. But the devil is in the details, you have to get way further out than any shuttle has ever gone to do it. Other schemes that have merit are very large solar sails, very large solar collectors that beam sunlight timed precisely to cause a rocket effect to errupt form the surface.

There are some fairly large objects that pop up unnoticed on a regular basis

Only one thing to do then. . . Bring on the hookers, booze and drugs!

Actually it was a meteor..they said about the size of a VW. Was there a few years back. It's just off I-40 near Winslow.

Soylent Green IS people

You're talking about Meteor Crater. Been there. Interesting but the "museum" looks like it hasn't seen facilities maintenance in about 40 years. The crater is pretty well-preserved and impressive though.

The one on my garage wall ended in 2002... She was... er I mean it was... a very good month...

Emo Phillips has the answer: "All we gotta do is time it so at impact the US is out of the way....once again, Canada gets a free ride."

I heard N. Korea is planning on nuking the asteriod...

fly over winslow and view meteor crater from the air. project mercury looks the same! not one damn thing different except some of project mercurys holes are wider. be it asteroid or meteor both are nickel based and very heat resistant. very hard on rockwell scale of hardness.

just viewed a PBS show regarding molten magma building below earths crust. hence geothermal hot springs. the water below ground is being super heated by magma close to surface. bottom line around the globe there are a number of these areas. and some are reaching critical mass. jellystone (yellowstone park) is one of them. upon venting, the amount of particulates released will block out the sun, is equal to mega mega nuke-lar weapons, and will really put the damper on track days for all of us.

sooooo.............be it asteroid/meteor/massive magma eruptions(krakatoa was a low level example),iran, north korea,..................... we is ALL GONNA DIE!

im putting my aluminum foil helmet on NOW!

pm me for orders, i will offer discounts for group buys

Take a look at NASA's Near Earth Object web site.

I think you can get to a site that has projected orbits of any object considered 'near earth" as it passess. There was one asteroid that passed pretty close 3-4 years ago.

Comets and asteroids differ in the same way a 917-30 differs from a Vespa. Comets come into our solar system hook around the Sun and wave bye-bye in a few days.

Yeah super calderas are a biatch, and the sweet thing is that yellowstone is at time "0." It isn't if it going to go off it is when. Oh yeah and don't forget about Tambora, Krakatoa's big brother. Indonesia is teeming with volcanic activity. There was so much water around that the magma caused a Phreatic eruption. There is no Tambora island anymore since it blew up and then the rest fell into the magma chamber under the sea. COOL STUFF!

Well... I guess it's time to start digging up my oil drums full of weapons and ammo.

the massive eruptions plunged planet earth into a rather fridgid state for quite some time. now was it the meteorite off cozumel, or massive magma venting, that made DINO and his bruddahs seek whatever close REI or NORTH FACE store for arctic/antarctic fashionable down clothing !

either way geologically, things aint KOSHER!

lets see............count the ways of massive humanoid eradication.

1)massive magma venting

2)asteroids/comets/meteors

3) e-coli from farm products

4)osama

5)tsunamis

6)nuke-lar warfare

7)drought

8) global warming

have i missed any???

just the visual of DINO and his bruddahs all bundled up in NORTH FACE EXPEDITION clothes cracks me up!

cockroaches wearing down vests! LOL!

Actually the comets have a more elliptical orbit, true, but the real difference is in the makeup. Comets are more like dirty snowballs. Hence the offgassing and vaporization, which creates the visible 'tail'.
Asteroids are big rocks.

Bird Flu

does this mean we don't get to find out about 165 mph/8500rpm ?

I think this is the only way to get the blue targa to 165.

i can promise the blue targa will do as advertised if its any where close to ground zero in the event of mega magma burst or comet/meteor! more than likely cube those figures, if he drives on the PYROCLASTIC HIGHWAY!

wow i forgot bird flu and AIDS!

with all of this darkness surrounding our puney existence on this puny planet......EVERY MORNING WE SEE IS A REASON TO PARTY LIKE THERES NO TOMMORROW!