Dont retire to the west coast :)

At a conference this week and had the good fortune to have Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson as a speaker. With the recent hit and near miss events in Russia it seems he altered his presentation somewhat last minute to talk about celestial object tracking and collisions.

It seems there is an object they are tracking closely, about the size of the Rose Bowl, that is on a decreasing orbit. The key passings are first in 2029 it will pass withing the orbit of our satellites (ie. very berkeleying close, like the one that buzzed Russia late friday) During that passing there is a small, they refer to it as the keyhole, area in which it can pass that it will be close enough to the earth for the gravitational pull to alter its future trajectory, this would actually be good. If it doesn't hit the keyhole then in 2034 it will plunge into the Pacific ocean.

The resulting explosion in the ocean will create a Tsunami which will reach the entire west coast with an approximately 50 story wave. Then to make it worse that "crater" created in the water will refill, violently and then send out a secondary tsunami wave, the cycle will repeat in decreasing waves at least 40 times. It is expected to devastate the entire west coast for at least 1/2 mile inland.

It was amazing and somewhat frightening to listen to him describe it with absolute certainty. And I have little reason to doubt his certainty because he doesn't really have an agenda to push other than this...

The US government is disinterested in any early planning for the event, because it generally falls outside the electable lifespans of any of our current politicians. Oddly enough the Soviet space program is working on a plan to deflect the object although they do not stand to suffer the impact.

I have no real point to this other than to share the fascinating information shared by Dr Tyson. If you ever have the opportunity to hear him speak I highly recommend it.

Science is expensive. People don't seem to get that it pays off though.

Kenny_McCormic wrote: Science is expensive. People don't seem to get that it pays off though.

He made that very point. Showed a global map which "Grew" or "Shrunk" a country by the amount of scientific research it produced. You could overlay that map (and he did) with a map of economic growth and it matches up quite well.

Sadly his follow on was the same map showing scientific research by growth or decline....not real difficult to guess where the US falls.

In reply to JThw8:

Um, WOW.

gamby wrote: In reply to JThw8: Um, WOW.

Quite my thought as well. Especially how it was presented, not a possibility but a scientific certainty with a tiny window of change. He discussed how they cant track everything (ie the first hit in Russia last week) because some objects are just too small. But the ones which are big enough to track are bound by certain rules and constants of physics so therefore they are very predictable.

JThw8 wrote:

Kenny_McCormic wrote: Science is expensive. People don't seem to get that it pays off though.

He made that very point. Showed a global map which "Grew" or "Shrunk" a country by the amount of scientific research it produced. You could overlay that map (and he did) with a map of economic growth and it matches up quite well. Sadly his follow on was the same map showing scientific research by growth or decline....not real difficult to guess where the US falls.

This surprises me exactly zero. Lot of other maps you could make like that.

JThw8 wrote:

gamby wrote: In reply to JThw8: Um, WOW.

Quite my thought as well. Especially how it was presented, not a possibility but a scientific certainty with a tiny window of change. He discussed how they cant track everything (ie the first hit in Russia last week) because some objects are just too small. But the ones which are big enough to track are bound by certain rules and constants of physics so therefore they are very predictable.

They have 20 years to plan for it, but FFFFFFFFUUUUUUU

I don't know how recent this is, but NASA says it is unlikely, if its the same space rock.

http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news018.html

fritzsch wrote: I don't know how recent this is, but NASA says it is unlikely, if its the same space rock. http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news018.html

Different rock. Timelines are different and he gave the name I just lost it already. I'll see if I can find more info on it.

Apophis?

fritzsch wrote: Apophis?

Yeah, that was it, is that the same as in the article you posted (I'll admit, its late and I skimmed)

In reply to JThw8:

No I posted that link just after getting up while getting ready for class. Two different rocks. I looked into the Apophis a bit more and NASA says its not really a threat. Why do people think NASA is worthless? Anyway if Dr. Tyson was talking about Apophis, there is this link; http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/asteroids/news/asteroid20130110.html

Here's my thoughts (they dont matter)

If NASA was so good at figuring this stuff out, they would have told the Russians "hey, you got a meteorite coming in hot, and it'll probably explode above central motherland, we'll bet you a few million and an astronaut on ISS".

Thing is, NASA didn't have any idea.

If the same would have happened over LA/NYC/DC would they have seen it coming?

Also, anyone else find it interesting that Obama wants to land on a asteroid by 2025? The same year that Tyson's asteroid will need to hit the keyhole? Maybe Obama does want to recreate Armageddon's famous scene?

PHeller wrote: Here's my thoughts (they dont matter) If NASA was so good at figuring this stuff out, they would have told the Russians "hey, you got a meteorite coming in hot, and it'll probably explode above central motherland, we'll bet you a few million and an astronaut on ISS". Thing is, NASA didn't have any idea. If the same would have happened over LA/NYC/DC would they have seen it coming?

JThw8 wrote: Quite my thought as well. Especially how it was presented, not a possibility but a scientific certainty with a tiny window of change. He discussed how they cant track everything (ie the first hit in Russia last week) because some objects are just too small. But the ones which are big enough to track are bound by certain rules and constants of physics so therefore they are very predictable.

Woohoo!!! Beachfront property in Arizona!

JThw8 wrote: The US government is disinterested in any early planning for the event, because it generally falls outside the electable lifespans of any of our current politicians. Oddly enough the Soviet space program is working on a plan to deflect the object although they do not stand to suffer the impact.

They have brown people to bomb, rights to strip, and Wall St. to bail out. They can't be bothered with this asteroid nonsense. Our military budget last year was more than the entire history of NASA. We're relying on RUSSIA to launch our astronauts. China makes most of our goods. Who are we protecting ourselves against?

Click it, the pic is too big to post. http://steveharoz.com/public/NASA%20budget%202.png

If it is Apophis you misunderstood a few things. If it hits the keyhole in 2029 then it will hit Earth in 2036, if it doesn't then it won't. There's a low chance of it hitting the keyhole so it's not a big threat. If it does hit the keyhole then you can bet governments around the world will get serious about it, a rock that's going to smash into us is a lot easier to understand and act on than global warming.

I'm not concerned. It was supposed to snow overnight, it didn't.
If they can't predict the path of a snowstorm, 100 times the size of the rose bowl that's only 150 miles away, I have little faith in this.

The meteor over Russia (it's only a meteorite after it hits!) is thought to have been about 55 feet wide or roughly the size of an F/A 18 Hornet. In contrast, Apophis is 3 1/2 football fields, or roughly 1000 feet wide which is 20 times the size of the Russian meteor. It's really difficult to spot something that small moving that fast far enough out to have any real warning.

Yeah, NASA is tracking all kinds of small orbital junk but they are in much lower/slower orbits than the Russian meteor.

I suspect this guy:

Curmudgeon wrote: Yeah, NASA is tracking all kinds of small orbital junk but they are in much lower/slower orbits than the Russian meteor.

Crazy to think they can still sneak (streak) by, ya know?

DrBoost wrote: I'm not concerned. It was supposed to snow overnight, it didn't. If they can't predict the path of a snowstorm, 100 times the size of the rose bowl that's only 150 miles away, I have little faith in this.

It's a lot easier to predict whether a rock flying in a vacuum will hit a planet than whether a storm in a complex climate system will hit your house.

We've got plenty of "nucluler" weapons and missiles, so it's not like it would be exceedingly difficult to deflect it. Seriously, what is NASA getting paid for?

Sky_Render wrote: We've got plenty of "nucluler" weapons and missiles, so it's not like it would be exceedingly difficult to deflect it. Seriously, what is NASA getting paid for?

Nuking it would break it into multiple pieces which would just spread the damage around more. If it has to be deflected they'd use a "gravity tractor."