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- vroom101, on 10/11/2008, -0/+22See also "Plot of the Inner Solar System" at http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/lists/InnerPlot.htm ... (cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/lists/InnerPlot.html)
- Fhwqhgads, on 10/12/2008, -1/+19One of those is Jimmy Hoffa.
- nick111, on 10/12/2008, -1/+17Good to see the line that says "This plot must not be reproduced without the express written consent of the Minor Planet Center." is automatically ignored by Digg's thumbnail thing.
Oh... and every cache of every browser that ever sees it.
What is it with these anally rententive copyright *****. Information isn't useful unless you can copy it. - gradivus, on 10/12/2008, -5/+21If that doesnt make you ***** yourself nothing short of a marathon will.
- OneLess, on 10/12/2008, -0/+13Kind of misrepresentative because of how huge each dot is. In reality these objects aren't nearly touching like the dots, large objects are usually several million km away from each other and probes go through the asteroid belt without worrying about hitting anything.
- JakeBC, on 10/12/2008, -0/+11Damn... There's a lot of ***** out there.
- gradivus, on 10/12/2008, -0/+9Ghet you ass to Mahs.
- BoltonWanderers, on 10/12/2008, -0/+8Now I'm definitely not moving to Mars...
- disrupter, on 10/12/2008, -6/+14I'd rather be snorting cocaine off a hooker's ass
- CursorTN, on 10/12/2008, -0/+8The scale of the chart is quite misleading. I'll quote Douglas Admas as he put is so much better than I ever could:
Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space. - Kronos6948, on 10/12/2008, -0/+7Not to mention the fact that this is a 2-d representation of a 3-d orbit scheme...
- SpikeFury, on 10/12/2008, -0/+7Tick tock...
- moisie, on 10/12/2008, -0/+6They're looking at it from the wrong side. Everyone know the universe is the other way up.
- vroom101, on 10/12/2008, -1/+7What??? How is NASA "partially responsible for the current economical crisis"?
- SuperHyperKid, on 10/12/2008, -1/+7Ok, I feel slightly retarded, but can anyone explain exactly what I am looking at?
- A2TrueBlue, on 10/12/2008, -0/+5FTA: NOTE: The strange behavior exhibited by the comets (a general heading inwards prior to the mid 1990s and a general heading outwards post 2000) is a consequence of plotting only those comets currently observable (as of mid 2002). Around this date, all of the long-period comets would have been at or near perihelion. Fifty years either side of this date they are all far from the sun. If the full cometary catalogue had been plotted, this effect would not be so noticeable as there would be inbound and outbound comets visible on each pre-2002 frame.
- DrDabbles, on 10/12/2008, -0/+4Actually, the fact of the matter is that if we were about to be hit by an asteroid or any other body from space, we most probably wouldn't know it until 1 second before it struck the surface. This is simply because we can't see these bodies nearby without them being lit by sunlight or radio telescopes...and we don't watch 100% of the sky 100% of the time. By the time we saw it heating up in our atmosphere, it would have already struck the ground.
The idea of defense from objects we DO see is all but laughed out of scientific journals. You have a fundamental problem of mass moving at a high velocity. There is little to nothing you can do to slow or deflect one of these bad boys, no matter what you see in the movies. Moreover, the concept of blowing an object up makes the problem worse- now you have hundreds or thousands of impactors...and depending on what they were split with, they are probably highly radioactive.
The point, more or less, is this. Don't worry about it. The solar system does a pretty good job of protecting us, and the items it does miss are few and far between. Plus, once the planet is sent into another round of extinction, your worries are well over with. - jaredcat, on 10/12/2008, -1/+5telescope..
- loudnobnoxious, on 10/12/2008, -2/+5Good old IDL
- emkaysmith, on 10/12/2008, -1/+4Space isn't really as "empty" as you might have thought it was -- especially in a neighborhood as overcrowded as the inner portion of the Solar System, where the Sun's gravity keeps attracting more stuff.
- one1plus1one, on 10/12/2008, -1/+4Ok, let me see if I understand your way at looking at life:
Each time the market or economy is in a downward dip, or each time we don't like the politicians in power, we should stop exploring. We should stop advancing and developing new technologies.
We should stiffle our yearning and awe at the greater universe, because, of course, you feel that's useless!
Instead we should all focus on banal political banter, and the latest polls, who said what, and he said, she said, kinda of stuff?
We should turn inward, and seal ourselves off tightly from the rest of the world. We should all lock our doors really tight, and hide from the greater world. And of course: we need more surveillance! We need to watch people more! We must turn our vision and eyes inward, instead of outward. Surveillance will solve everything!
Well, that's an interesting world view you have.
But while you turn ever increasingly inward, and hanging on every word uttered by politicians, and while you wait for the ideal utopian government to become elected, others will be exploring, developing and advancing human civilization.
People like you have been waiting a long time for the "perfect moment". But it will never come. There will never be a perfect financial or political moment to explore. Consider this quote:
"The national budget must be balanced. The public debt must be reduced; the arrogance of the authorities must be moderated and controlled.
- Cicero (106 BC - 43 BC)
As you can see, you're not hte first person hoping for the perfect political or economic situation. Explorers on the other hand don't wait. Because they know they will wait forever. Instead they act now. They discover. They move forward. - gemlarin, on 10/12/2008, -0/+3Interesting, but the proportions make it look more striking that it is. The green dots, which I assume are things like meteorites and other space debris are not large enough to be packed in like sardines. Most are smaller than a football field (European or American) and are separated by hundreds of thousands of miles. The image is impressive in illustrating the amount of "stuff" out there, but the scale is extremely deceiving and if viewed without proper scaling context causes a lot more concern than justified.
Dozens of meteorites enter the atmosphere everyday, possibly even hundreds, but most are no larger than a yard or two across and break up before even hitting the ground. Are they included in this image? - vroom101, on 10/12/2008, -0/+3#1. Excerpt from the article "Target Earth: Asteroids look like they may hit planet earth?" at http://www.wptv.com/mostpopular/story.aspx?content ... (www.wptv.com/mostpopular/story.aspx?content_id=d7d8e0ff-613a-46f6-a482-faa9b6085a62):
"On March 23, 1989, the Apollo asteroid [4581 Asclepius (1989 FC)] 1000 feet [304.8 meters] in diameter missed the earth by 400,000 miles [643,737.6 kilometers] passing through the exact position where the earth was only 6 hours before. If the asteroid had impacted it would have created the largest explosion in recorded history. . . ."
#2. Excerpt from "Asteroids" at http://www.nss.org/settlement/asteroids/ (www.nss.org/settlement/asteroids/):
". . . We have been warned. On 23 March 1989, asteroid 1989FC (with the potential impact energy of over 1000 megatons, roughly the equivalent a thousand of the most powerful nuclear bombs) missed Earth by about six hours [Freedman 1995]. We first saw this fellow after closest approach. If 1989FC had come in six hours later most of us would have been killed with zero warning. We are hit by thousands of smaller asteroids every year and we don't see any of them before the collision.
In October of 1990 a very small asteroid struck the Pacific Ocean with a blast about the size of the first atomic bomb (the one that leveled Hiroshima, Japan, killing roughly 200,000 people in seconds). If this asteroid had arrived ten hours later it would have struck in the middle of more than a million U.S. and Iraqi soldiers preparing for war. How would America have reacted to what looked like an Iraqi nuclear attack? Hiroshima-sized explosions due to asteroids actually occur in the Earth's atmosphere about once a month [Lewis 1996b], but are seldom seen because most of the Earth is unpopulated. The data comes from Air Force satellites designed to look for nuclear explosions. . . ."
#3. Excerpt from "Cosmic Earth Impacts" at http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/impact.h ... (www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/impact.html)
". . . On March 23, 1989 an asteroid named 1989 FC with a diameter about 0.3 miles and a kinetic energy of over 1,000 one-megaton hydrogen bombs passed within 430,000 miles of the Earth. This asteroid was not discovered until it had passed its point of closest approach, and only after calculating backwards its orbital path. Since then several other celestial bodies of similar sizes have been measured as coming within 62,000 miles of Earth. . . ."
#4. "An asteroid, headed our way" by Peter N. Spotts , 26 July 2005: http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0726/p01s04-stss.htm ... (www.csmonitor.com/2005/0726/p01s04-stss.html) - macguyca, on 10/12/2008, -0/+3Amen.
- uglyMood, on 10/12/2008, -0/+3It's probable that the blue squares are only the ones we know about now because they're within an observable radius. My suspicion is that if the location of all the solar system bodies further out were known the convergence effect would vanish as they would be coming up behind the blue ones. Just my opinion.
- sammytom, on 10/12/2008, -1/+4Does anyone else think its odd how all the blue squares converge on the sun almost at the same time in this animation? Watch it in is entirety. Can someone explain whats going on there?
http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/Animations/OuterSma ... - psion01, on 10/13/2008, -0/+2From the International Astronomical Union definition: "...a 'planet' is defined as a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (c) has cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit."
Read bullet 'c' and take another close look at the above image. You should then realize I wasn't making the claim that all those objects in Earth's neighborhood should be called planets, but that the Earth itself (nor Venus and Mars) are planets by that screwball definition. Just because some folks find it inconvenient to count too high, doesn't mean Pluto isn't a planet. Additionally, the manner in which the definition was passed at the previous conference (waiting until most of the astronomers had gone home) irritated a large percentage of the IAU membership. The matter is scheduled to be discussed again in August 2009, and it's not unreasonable to assume Pluto's status as a planet will be restored. Along with a few new objects.
My point is that the current definition is deficient in a number of respects and was passed in a controversial fashion. These matters will be corrected in less than a year. - twertyto, on 10/13/2008, -0/+2Very nicely put.
- gradivus, on 10/12/2008, -0/+2Oh I know the scale of it, but thats just what we have mapped out. Have you seen the animation of earth/object orbit of all that stuff?
- GarrettGrimsley, on 10/12/2008, -1/+3DENIED!
- jaredcat, on 10/13/2008, -0/+2as long as I can take all of those "£" with me
- DrDabbles, on 10/12/2008, -0/+2...nobody here is talking about aliens. Also, if you don't know what "£" represents, I hope a comet DOES impact earth. Just to prevent you from spreading those genes any further.
- Alias1431, on 10/13/2008, -0/+2We're so dead.
- nezroy, on 10/12/2008, -1/+3The IAU definition currently includes (nearly) spherical by virtue of self-gravity. None of these inner objects are even remotely massive enough to qualify for that. The de-planetification of Pluto has nothing to do with these inner objects and everything to do with the prediction that there are many more Pluto like objects out past Pluto (like Eris), some of which are even larger than Pluto (like Eris), and calling every one of them a planet could get kind of silly. Since all of those objects are no different than Pluto, except that Pluto was discovered earlier and happens to be a little closer, it makes sense to de-planetize Pluto if you aren't going to call any of those other objects planets either.
- sweethead9, on 10/12/2008, -0/+2Where's Nibiru?
Seriously though, a 3D model of this would be so cool... - twertyto, on 10/13/2008, -0/+1Wow. I haven't heard that since grad school days.
- GraceHead, on 10/13/2008, -1/+2ITS OVER 9000!!!!
- oldsystem, on 10/12/2008, -0/+1pahah! you are being funny. =D
- jaredcat, on 10/12/2008, -1/+2defense from what exactly?
i dont think all the trillions of "£" (whatever they are) in the world could stop a comet or asteroid .. and space defense against aliens is just silly. - bubba9999, on 10/12/2008, -3/+3It looks like the green crap is closing in on us. We're doomed.
- pinchduck, on 10/12/2008, -4/+4I have no idea how those bodies got there. I want to speak to my lawyer. Right now.
- hornback, on 10/12/2008, -1/+1Well they certainly picked the color possible for the minor planets (green things). Congrats on that brilliant insight.
- sweethead9, on 10/12/2008, -1/+1You really don't know how exploring space has helped us here on Earth? Wow. You need to get edge-a-mu-cated.
- exspasticcomics, on 10/12/2008, -3/+3somebody sneezed on a microscope :P
- Finalreminder, on 10/12/2008, -3/+2Scary stuff.
Funny how we can find a £trillion between the EU and USA to bail out the greedy banks but they wont put more than a few $ towards space defence - elpifco99, on 10/12/2008, -2/+1I can see Russia from here!
- psion01, on 10/12/2008, -6/+5This is why I find the IAU's definition of a planet so laughable. Pluto for Planet '09!
- SpikeFury, on 10/12/2008, -4/+3Every asteroid and meterorite and commet and whatever satan himself put out there orbits the sun. So do we... We are slow, they are fast.
or we are fast they are slow... does it really matter? -
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