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69 Comments
- virtualball, on 10/12/2007, -2/+41LOL, they had minutes to warn everybody so they waited 3 years.
- adam192, on 10/12/2007, -1/+27why not publish it as soon as the asteroid had safely passed earth?
- evileyetmc, on 10/12/2007, -2/+27I understand that this was a "panic averted" situation, but why publish this 3 years later? Why not, say, 1 or 2 years later?
Still, it's good to know that the amateur astronomer counts for something. - PhoenixCE, on 10/12/2007, -2/+21I thought I read somewhere that there are more people working at your local burger joint than there are looking for incoming asteroids.
- freff, on 10/12/2007, -4/+22"I thought I read somewhere that there are more people working at your local burger joint than there are looking for incoming asteroids."
I don't see anything really wrong with that Phoenix. I'd rather be out living my life than being obsessed with something that may or may not destroy me and there is little that I can do about it if it does. Plus, hamburgers are tasty. - hiro, on 10/12/2007, -1/+16I've read the title to myself several times but it still doesn't make sense
- vermin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14Wrong. The handful of professional astronomers who search for near earth objects work in conjunction with a network of amateur astronomers. When an asteroid is discovered to have a chance of hitting the earth, the amateur astronomers take follow-up observations to pinpoint the exact orbit of the rock. No correcting going on, it's a team.
Yes believe it or not, without "amateurs" the search for potentially apocalyptic asteroids/comets on course to collide with our planet would be almost non-existant. - PatrickFisher, on 10/12/2007, -3/+12Really, I have to wonder what good a warning like this would do. What are we going to do? Evacuate earth? Send nukes to try and divert it? None of these options are viable. All that would happen is mass panic. So what would be the point of issuing a warning like this?
- LordSkywalker, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9There's always an Alien Battle Cruiser...or a Korlian Death Ray, or...an intergalactic
plague about to wipe out life on this planet, and the only thing that lets people
get on with their hopeful little lives is that they don't know about it. - Criterion, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7No, you are thinking of the word amateur in a negative sense. Just because an astronomer is a professional does not mean he is any more of an "expert" than an amateur.. it only means it's his job. You will find many, MANY extremely knowledgable people in the amateur astronomy community. They do it for the love of it, not for the money... which is the precise definition of "amateur".
- trieste, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7What were you planning to do with the other 4:30?
- TroubleInMind, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10The part that's still classified is how they sent Rosie O'Donnell up the space elevator and used her mass to pull the asteroid off from an intercept vector. You're not supposed to know about the space elevator. Shhhh.
- iching, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7Don't know first I heard of it, I just put the wired news story up, but did a little research on the asteroid but didn't find much from American sources
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3517319.stm
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/asteroid_warning_040322.html - trieste, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5We should send Ben Affleck into space now. Win-win situation.
- Arkun, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Let's destroy the observatory so this won't happen again!
- idonthack, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6They're merely ants in the world that is the Earth.
- PiGuy, on 10/12/2007, -4/+8http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucifer%27s_Hammer
- vermin, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5RTFA, In this particular case it was a small asteroid that would have only caused localized destruction. Plenty of opportunity to evacuate an area if possible.
- TimKnab, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Funny you mention that. I just finished reading the book where that quote came from "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson. It really is a great book you should all check it out.
- beingdevious, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4or digg it...
- M3hul, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Just another nice example that we are merely ants in the world that is the universe.
- PabloMac, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4What is the protocol for issuing a worldwide alert?
- xenixninja, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Uhm, this is kind of old news. I heard about it right after it happened.
Still, it maybe didn't get enough media attention as it should have. What happens when we might get hit? Just a chosen few will be notified? - blapierre, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4It was made public right after the miss. Just look at the BBC link posted above. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3517319.stm
- nypix, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Why would they be looking to warn the white house? From what I understand they'd need a supervisor from an oil platform first.
- ZanCakes, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3The whole story seemed rather anti-climatic to me...
- shortarabguy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I like that plan, but if you're going to die in the next 5 minutes would you actually care if she was 17? Haha, are you worried that the government would take your corpse to court for rape? Still, I like the offer of money to a woman who's going to get killed as well, very nice touch. Just hope that she's blond.
- Somniis, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5The funny thing is that we could be hit right now and never see it coming...
- cderagon182, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4No we would send Ben Affleck, Bruce Willis, and some oil drillers to destroy the asteroid while we listen to some aerosmith instead of mass panic :-)
- shortarabguy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I just don't see it as grave or important as they said... The predicted damage wouldn't have been on the scale of taking out a city, and the chances of it randomly finding itself in the middle of the Pacific or Atlantic, as well as the chances of it just hitting some random uninhabited area, must have made the probable danger pretty low. It would have been digg-worthy if it was recent news, as one of the first posters suggested, but three years later and no craters, I'm just not interested...
- rocketryguy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3NORAD already filters for impact signatures in their normal protocol before determining if there has been a nuke.
- pahoehoe, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2And you'll find amateurs in many other fields, such as computer science, biology, geology, math, music, poetry, etc. who are surprisingly knowledgeable and skilled at what they do, and in some cases, more so than the professionals.
- themaestro8, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3So what does that make the ants then...
- pahoehoe, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"I'd rather be out living my life than being obsessed with something that may or may not destroy me and there is little that I can do about it if it does."
It's entirely possible that the people who scan the skies and think up ways to defend the earth against collisions enjoy what they do. I can eat/make a burger any day, and regularly do so, but it's not every day that I can discover the asteroid that's going to destroy the earth and put my name on it. - CompleXz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Fireworks in the sky...i think.
- ChewyBass, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"What is the protocol for issuing a worldwide alert?"
In this day and age CNN, Foxnews, ABC, CBS, BBC. - CompleXz, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2LOL .....who ***** in your mouth :) Duggg
- loopyloopy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Whats the point of issuing an alert anyway -
so we've got time to grab our valuables, board our flying cars and zoom up to the moonbase until the show's over? - CompleXz, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3It would be so fiction & unrealistic if the planet was hit by an astroide. It´s hard to imagine what we would be like after the impact.
Monkeys ??? - londubh, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2And how would those minutes have made a difference to those in the possible strike zone? And that they had considered calling the White House. They would have totally Katrina-ed that. Calling NORAD would have been better (do they have a 1-800 number?) to let them know it wasn't a nuclear strike. The article is written poorly. Here's a nice article about it http://www.birtwhistle.org/Gallery2004AS1.htm Had it been on a collision course it would have been 27 hours before it it. Plenty of time to cause a world wide panic.
- tuxidomasx, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3if i heard a warning with 5 minutes to spare, i'd go get laid.
i'd go next door and offer whatever chick (over 18, under 50 ) i saw all my money and wordly possessions for a quick blowjob or some cut or somethin
and i'd also call my parents and tell them i love them.
i'd do both of these at the same time. multitask to save time. - nogami, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Sure we are, but timing counts too :P
Nobody gets out alive! - CompleXz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1LOL
- pahoehoe, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"it doesn't matter, small or not. Localized destruction has global consequences. I'm not saying that all hope would be lost, I'm just saying that these warnings are kind of pointless."
Yeah, and providing people along a coastline warnings about an impending tsunami would be pointless too, because "local destruction has global consequences", and "it doesn't matter, small or not". A warning, even a day's warning, would improve many peoples' chances of surviving such an impact, and allow others outside the affected area to prepare assistance. Now, by responding to your argument, I feel stupid. What a waste. - threemonkeydust, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Red thumb for you, sir.
- CompleXz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1LOL which one ???
- amberonius, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1We are narrowly missed by astroids all the time. They arent going to say anything because mass panic wont prevent it.
- floorman56, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Tunguska!!!!
- YellowStar, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1We need robot moon-based or space-based telescopes. Lots of them. Now. We can't see anything coming towards us if it is coming at us from the Sun's direction. Then again, Barnard's Star is coming towards us pretty fast too. 140kms/sec. Should be only 3.8 ly away by 11,800 AD
- starmanjones, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1>and the warning might cause a War of the Worlds type of panic.
there are times when panic is all there is left. -
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