This is interesting: an asteroid named 2007 TU24 will pass roughly 560,000 kilometers (330,000 miles) from the Earth on January 29, 2008. That’s close enough to be interesting, but far enough not to worry about it. Funny coincidence: that’s almost the same time 2007 WD5 will pass very close to Mars. The odds of a Mars impact are still not zero, but there is no chance at all of TU24 hitting us.
I don’t usually track such news, but I actually found out about this at Digg.com, where some folks were digging up a misleading video about the asteroid. The video wasn’t hugely popular, but it’s had a few thousand viewings which isn’t bad. But I have some beefs with it, and I think they point to some misconceptions people have about asteroids.
First, though, the video is a bait-and-switch to talk about how Ron Paul isn’t getting press. OK, feh. My thoughts on Paul are pretty clear, and I’ve seen little to change my mind.
But the science too is misleading. The first thing the video author shows is the well-known asteroid Ida, claiming it’s TU24, which is incorrect.
Then he shows how close it will pass, with a grossly misleading graphic of the Earth and Moon sitting right next to each other, making it look like this asteroid will just barely miss us. Make no mistake: this is a pretty close pass for an asteroid, but it has no chance at all of hitting us, so it’s no big deal. Looking at the list of recent and upcoming close approaches by asteroids, you can see this one is on the nearest for a while, but there are many other near misses… stress the word "miss".
In the description, he also says
It will be 1.37 Lunar Distances from earth on January 29, 2008. Let’s hope they’re right. Gauging trajectory on something coming right at you isn’t easy.
Nope, it’s not heading right for us. It’s heading to a point in space where the Earth will be on January 29. Actually, it’s headed to a point in space more than half a million kilometers from where the Earth will be at that time. Either way, that spot in space is currently more than 60 million kilometers (40 million miles) away from us right now; a fair ways off. So actually, getting the orbit is just a matter of getting good observations, like it usually is.
Asteroids are a real threat, and need to be taken seriously. This video — and they way I see the media treat the threat in general — in my opinion, make matters somewhat worse. Perhaps I’m hammering this particular video a little hard, but to me it represents a whole class of misleading coverage of asteroids. And c’mon, if you want to make a point, just make it. (Mis)Using astronomy this way isn’t helping any.
January 6th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
But.. Ron Paul has a blimp.
January 6th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
Good thing it didnt hit the earth or we wouldnt be here anymore.
January 6th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
@Christian: RMS has an airship, but that doesn’t mean I think he’d be a good choice to run the country.
January 6th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
A bit off-topic, as a person learning English, I’ve always been amused by a phrase “near miss”. I mean, literally speaking, it’s a hit! A collision is a near miss.
January 6th, 2008 at 4:22 pm
I agree with you BA. One thing I find interesting about the media is how they sometimes really work to keep things technically and scientifically accurate and at others don’t seem to at all. For example a poll of the electorate will have in the small print a degree of confidence or a disclaimer if it is an informal nonscientific poll, yet they’ll print a daily astrology column with no disclaimer whatsoever. To some degree this is an indication that the media are parrots. If they aren’t fed the correct disclaimers they don’t even bother and they aren’t savy enough in many cases to know it should be placed in there. The media will often report earthquake magnitudes by using the Richter scale. Suffice it to say that a large proportion of the population doesn’t understand the specifics of the scale or even logarithms which are necessary background. Even so it is useful. So let me invite the media to start using the Torino scale of asteroid threat levels. This would lead to a good way to escape the hype of asteroids.
January 6th, 2008 at 4:27 pm
Kushan: You might want to consult George Carlin for your English lessons.
January 6th, 2008 at 4:31 pm
Ron Paul, is he not the one that wants to defund NASA? Who then will keep track of all those earth crossing asteriods? Who will figure out how to move them away from us? I guess the free market will step in. How much profit is in it?
January 6th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
Kushan: In the phrase ‘near miss’, the word near is an adjective modifying the word miss. Therefore a ‘near miss’, literally speaking, is a miss that was near. The confusion probably stems from the similarity between ‘near miss’ and ‘nearly missed’.
January 6th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
It’s not gonna hit:-(( Dang, I was so looking forward Armageddon.
January 6th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
bob: Thx for the explanation
Gonzo: I already did, and he set me straight!
January 6th, 2008 at 5:07 pm
kushan, the meaning you are thinking of is close, but a little bit off:
Near = Close
Nearly = Almost
So a near miss is a close miss, while nearly miss means almost a miss. And if it was a nearly miss you’d be quite right with you statement “A collision is a nearly miss.”
January 6th, 2008 at 5:28 pm
Despite the technical inaccuracy of that detail of the George Carlin Airplane Language bit, it’s still one of my favorites.
*boom*
“Oh look, they nearly missed…”
“But not quite!”
January 6th, 2008 at 5:45 pm
Nice to know 2007TU24 is not gona smack. A few extra questions arise.
Is 560,000 kilometers close enough for the asteroid to be perturbed into a more far-flung course by Earth’s gravitational influence?
How visible will this one be to us backyard astronomers? (Actually I found an answer at www.accuweather.com - it will be “around magnitude 10″ as it passes through Cassiopeia.)
January 6th, 2008 at 6:19 pm
If it was here one time, it’s gonna come back here some other times, I figure?
But yes, we get it - it’s a GOOD miss, with no uncertainty about that. This time.
And at least no HST tracking shot as it zips through the sky.
What was that about something hitting Mars? Something that wasn’t sent by us, I mean.
January 6th, 2008 at 6:24 pm
Close but no cigar. A Close shave. Close only counts in horse-shoes.
That was a close one. A Close call. Missed me, missed me, now ya gotta kiss me.
January 6th, 2008 at 7:21 pm
Just curious….
First, why did it take so long for mankind to discover this little asteroid? They/we found it on 10/11/07, only 110 days away from it’s “near miss” of the moon.
Second, why can’t we use our high-powered telescopes - including Hubble - to take pictures of the garbage we left on the face of the moon?
Honoring George Carlin, I want to make sure nobody “steals our stuff.” Why not take a snapshot now and then just to make sure it’s there. We already know that Satellites cameras can read the stamp on our letters and our license plates on our cars, so why can’t we get a simple shot of the junk we left on the moon?? It’s been a long, long time since we were up there and to my knowledge nobody has ever taken a high-powered telescope shot of “our stuff” on the moon.
Peace and God Bless!
January 6th, 2008 at 7:32 pm
My biggest issue with this is the old story of the boy who cried wolf. If the media blows all these near-hits (I don’t like the phrase “near miss”, George Carlin can tell you why) so far out of proportion just to get a rise out of everyone, and thus ratings, there’s going to be a point where people, such as those in power, are just going to ignore it should some actual threat show up. Granted, the odds are very slim and I’m not really that worried about it, but it’s just not a good policy to numb people to it that much.
January 6th, 2008 at 7:49 pm
What the….? How did that video go from warning about an asteroid to talking about Ron Paul?
January 6th, 2008 at 7:51 pm
Here’s a better link…
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/ca/
2007 TU24 comes amazingly close by comparison to the vast majority of other examples. To downplay this is silly. Why is our window of discovery only 110 days???
January 6th, 2008 at 8:18 pm
Unfortunately, we can’t control where asteroids are when we discover them. When they’re discovered, and have some data gathered about them, their orbit can be propogated. We’ve discovered some with years before a close approach, other with less than years. I don’t know how the statistics line up.
If you want something to worry about, worry about the asteroids we can’t see from Earth, with their apoapsis near 1 AU. They ‘hang out’ in our vicinity much longer than those zipping by in other parts of their orbit (this description is greatly simplified, but it’s all I have time for right now). The sun prevents us from spotting them (we’ve found less than 10 so far if memory serves), and the best way to track them would be a spacecraft in the vicinity of Venus.
Sleep tight!
January 6th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
@Leo Also, from the website you pointed out, please note that 2007 YP56 was within .5 LD of us on 27 Dec 07. Something coming that close is a statistical anomaly, but unremarkable unless the distance can’t be resolved to be >0.000X LD, for Earth’s radius.
Read up on the Palermo Scale:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palermo_scale
Before getting too worked up over any particular close approach.
January 6th, 2008 at 8:30 pm
Leo said: Second, why can’t we use our high-powered telescopes - including Hubble - to take pictures of the garbage we left on the face of the moon?
Basically, because no scope has anywhere near the resolution that would be required to do that. Hubble’s resolution is about 0.1 arc seconds (see here), which at the moon’s distance from Hubble’s orbit equals a resolution far too coarse to determine objects a few meters wide. Earth-based scopes aren’t any better.
On top of that, Hubble’s time is valuable, and booked up (to my understanding) years in advance. There isn’t much reason to look at stuff we know is there, and there isn’t much threat of it going anywhere. Hubble’s dwindling lifespan is better used towards targets that will garner useful information.
Besides, if you’re thinking of it silencing the Hoax nitwits, forget that idea. We have video taken directly on the surface that they don’t buy
What we do have is a laser reflector that we planted up there, and it has been used (and is perhaps still in use) to make precise distance measurements between Earth and Moon, so we can still check if that’s in place, at least.
We already know that Satellites cameras can read the stamp on our letters and our license plates on our cars,…
Actually, it’s not really known how powerful the military spy satellites are - it’s more WAGs than anything, but at orbital altitudes between 250 and 500 kilometers, Hubble could resolve somewhere in the vicinity of .2 meters, give or take (someone check my math). Except…
You have to consider that spy satellites, in order to remain in stable lower orbit and be able to traverse across large areas, travel fast. 11,000 to 28,000 klicks per hour or so. To resolve fine detail that’s flashing past underneath at that rate of speed, you need a very fast exposure, which means a huge amount of light-gathering ability. And there’s still the atmosphere to worry about.
So, postage stamps are probably out, and in reality, resolution is maybe half a meter or so for spy satellites in good conditions. And those are in orbit around Earth - it’s a lot farther to the Moon.
Now you got me trying to calculate exposure times to resolve without blurring, and how much light-gathering ability the scope would require…
January 6th, 2008 at 9:01 pm
I’m really surprised that you had to get this from Digg. Spaceweather.com has had TU24 listed for quite a few weeks in their PHA (potentially hazardous asteroids) list near the bottom of the page.
They also have links on each of the asteroids to a really “w00t” JAVA applet which shows the orbital tracks of the selected asteroid and the planets. YOu can zoom, tilt, roll, yaw, pitch, etc. Even reverse time!
January 6th, 2008 at 11:08 pm
My comment (#1 above) was meant to be humorous. There are many reasons why candidates deserve air-time, but a blimp is not one of them (the video claims it is).
However, I think that Paul supporters (I’m not one of them) are justifiably aggrieved that their candidate has been denied significant air-time and is now being excluded from debates. However badly the video made the point- it is worrying that the media gets to choose the candidates and debate topics which are safe for our viewing consumption.
This video is partly the result of a cynical and skeptical view that since the major networks went to so much effort to exclude Paul, then we can assume that they are also routinely excluding a lot of other news because of political reasons. There is some truth to that, but it doesn’t follow that the media has a vested interest in covering up near-miss asteroids.
I suspect that part of the reason why some conspiracy theories take off is because we (Americans) no longer trust the news media to do an adequate job. If that’s true, then I wonder what can be done about it.
January 6th, 2008 at 11:27 pm
Break the monoply of a few mostly jewish tycoons owning all the mainstream media perhaps?
Legislate to ensure equal time for all the various candidates and perspectives eg. give the 5 % of American Muslims equal time and space as the 5 % of American Jews ..?
Break up any corporation that exceeds a certain level of power-influence-media share and give at least half of it over to its cultural-political opposite - eg. split Fox in two and put its other half into the hands of a Palestinean Muslim Communist?
A few slightly tongue in cheek if also slightly serious ideas but I agree we have a serious problem here in terms of one or two groups with their own extremist agendas (*cough,* neo-Con Israeli lobby, cough!*) controlling all the media.
January 6th, 2008 at 11:44 pm
StevoR: Thanks for reminding me that there’s always someone willing to blame all their problems on those sneaky Jews. Go take your racist views elsewhere.
January 7th, 2008 at 12:32 am
Wow…this string went to some unpleasant places–and I thought being hit by an asteroid was nasty! Really, though, my main question about our visiting rock is…how bright will it be and can I observe it with my 8″ SCT?
January 7th, 2008 at 5:57 am
Leo writes:
[[why can’t we get a simple shot of the junk we left on the moon?? It’s been a long, long time since we were up there and to my knowledge nobody has ever taken a high-powered telescope shot of “our stuff” on the moon. ]]
That stuff isn’t big enough to show up in telescopes from this distance, even if we used the Hubble. The satellites reading license plates are in low Earth orbit, say, 238 miles up. The Moon is a thousand times further away. At that distance you couldn’t even make out the car.
January 7th, 2008 at 6:01 am
StevoR posts:
[[Break the monoply of a few mostly jewish tycoons owning all the mainstream media perhaps? ]]
All those Jewish tycoons like Rupert Murdoch and Dan Rather?
[[Legislate to ensure equal time for all the various candidates and perspectives eg. give the 5 % of American Muslims equal time and space as the 5 % of American Jews ..? ]]
Stevo, anti-Semitism is a mental illness. ‘Nuff said.
January 7th, 2008 at 6:04 am
BA: Has anyone made any progress on figuring out how we could divert an impactor if we had to? I used to think a nuke detonated on the surface at the right place could do it, but apparently that wouldn’t be enough, especially considering the thing might be detected fairly close and with little remaining warning time. This is something we absolutely have got to solve, or some day we’re going to lose a city, or at least have our ecosystem badly messed up for a year or two.
January 7th, 2008 at 7:15 am
@BPL - There are possibilities. Some are spelled out in this NASA report to Congress (there’s a larger version, that wasn’t released as publicly. Email me if you want a copy):
http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/171331main_NEO_report_march07.pdf
The bottom line is time, however. How much time we have from discovery to impact. With enough time, an exotic solution like a ‘gravity tractor’ could work, as could the weird solution of painting the rock (using the Yarkovsky effect to alter its trajectory over years). Many solutions are also affected by the makeup of the impactor itself. Is it a rubble pile or a solid piece? Each may require a different solution.
January 7th, 2008 at 8:01 am
“Ida. Fail.”
I didn’t know that Ron Paul was planning on teaching the Ida-ians (”Ida-ites”?) about the “controversy” surrounding the “theory” of evolution.
January 7th, 2008 at 10:23 am
BA,
This video is how you got here today! You started out debunking the misconceptions.
Don’t stop…
and thanks.
January 7th, 2008 at 10:33 am
BA titles: “Asteroid to miss Earth January 29″
In fact, almost all the Asteroids are going to miss the Earth on January 29th.
January 7th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
Matt: “almost all”
Which one (or two or three) don’t miss?
January 7th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
In the words of Holly, “Gordon Bennett, that was a close one!”
January 7th, 2008 at 5:02 pm
It’s not “no chance at all of TU24 hitting us”. It could get hit by another asteroid we don’t know about tomorrow and knocked into our path. (Never mind that it’s far more likely for an unknown asteroid to simply hit us directly.)
Similarly, I don’t have “no chance at all of winning the lottery” despite not buying a ticket, because I might find a winning ticket in my box of breakfast cereal.
January 7th, 2008 at 6:09 pm
WHOA! According to the chart at that list of close encounters by asteroids, one missed us by half a lunar orbit on Dec.27! Of course, it was a relativiely small one of 18-41 meters, but still, that’s enough to put a ding in the hood of your car.
January 7th, 2008 at 8:19 pm
Just Al says: “it’s not really known how powerful the military
> spy satellites are - it’s more WAGs than anything,
Well, *someone* knows how powerful they are, but no one in this group (at least who could tell without getting in major trouble). I know how powerful a couple of them were 30 years ago, and I can tell you that Leo’s estimates are way off.
> You have to consider that spy satellites, in order to remain in
> stable lower orbit and be able to traverse across large areas,
> travel fast. 11,000 to 28,000 klicks per hour or so. To resolve
> fine detail that’s flashing past underneath at that rate of speed,
> you need a very fast exposure, which means a huge amount of
> light-gathering ability.
There are ways of imaging a fast moving target without blurring and without a really fast shutter speed while still using relatively slow film (the finer the grain the slower the film). I think most of the reconnaissance camera technology has been declassified, but I’m not going to discuss it here. If you really want to know, look up photo finish cameras for horse racing.
> And there’s still the atmosphere to worry about.
In more ways than one. The “slant range” to the AI (area of interest) determines how much air you have to shoot through. It’s just as big of a problem looking down as when astronomers look up. While it seems you’d like a target directly under the vehicle, that’s usually not the case. That only shows you the tops of things when most of the information comes from a combination of the tops and sides. It’s why the moon is boring to look at when full, but has lots of detail at the quarter phases.
> So, postage stamps are probably out, and in reality, resolution
> is maybe half a meter or so for spy satellites in good conditions.
[codger mode] Back in MY day [\codger mode] the resolution was limited by the film emulsions. I’m not going to tell you what it was on our vehicle, but I’ll say that you aren’t too far off. PR birds haven’t used film for decades, but even with CCD’s surpassing film in granularity, the ultimate resolution limit is dictated by physics. Look up the Rayleigh Limit. For an optical system in low Earth orbit, that limit is a few millimeters, but the atmospheric turbulence kills it way before that.
BTW, you can’t read license plates from orbit no matter what you use. They’re vertical! If your vehicle was far enough away that you could see one from the side, the slant range would be so great, and the turbulence so bad that you wouldn’t be able to make out the car, let alone the plate.
> Now you got me trying to calculate exposure times to
> resolve without blurring, and how much light-gathering
> ability the scope would require…
I’d be interested to know what you come up with.
- Jack
January 7th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
I think the smiley face at the end of the video might sway me!
January 7th, 2008 at 9:06 pm
“Asteroid to miss earth” is a great headline for a slow news day. I could use it tomorrow, Asteroid to miss earth on January 8th, 2008. Then, if nothing is happening on the 9th, hey, I’ve got my headline for the 9th. I barely have to edit a thing. If I’m wrong, who cares? No one is going to notice my Dewey beats Truman what with some moby asteroid crashing into the earth.
UPDATE: Yeah, yeah, I’m sure some blogger will point it out - “Wise ass journalist porks ‘no asteroid’ call”. That’s why journalists hate bloggers.
January 8th, 2008 at 1:13 am
[…] a comet hit Jupiter years ago, and this would bring the topic back into the public realm. Although few asteroids are currently known to be heading toward the Earth, and the asteroid that could catastrophically hit us in 2014 has only a 1-in 990,000 chance of […]
January 11th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
To those wondering why we only found this so late, many of these “last minute finds” are very small objects we can’t see until they happen to get very close. This one is somewhat larger than many of these- a few hundred meters, which is larger than the one that caused the Tunguska explosion, but still nowhere near as large as the dinosaur killer.
To Bill Nettles:
………………
Matt:
BA titles: “Asteroid to miss Earth January 29?
In fact, almost all the Asteroids are going to miss the Earth on January 29th.
Bill Nettles:
Matt: “almost all”
Which one (or two or three) don’t miss?
…………………….
Answer: The many tiny ones that burn up in the atmosphere every night.
—————————-
To “Inertially Guided”:
at Magnitude 10-11, it will be easily visible in an 8″ scope.
————————–
Ron Paul doesn’t think the gov’t should be funding NASA. If it wasn’t for a gov’t funded explorer named Christopher Columbus, he wouldn’t have the opportunity to run for president of this country, and might still be ruled by european monarchs.
Add Lewis & Clark to the list of gov’t funded explorers, too.
January 11th, 2008 at 11:34 pm
Based on 12 days old data about an asteroid discovered 3 months ago that still needed astrometry 12 days ago… this is very very VEEEEEEEEEEEEERY! convincing!
Hey! It’s obvious that it will miss! We still don’t exactly know where it’s going but it’s SURE it will miss!
January 13th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
>>Nope, it’s not heading right for us. It’s heading to a point in space where the Earth will be on January 29.
If it really was a collision course, there’s not really much of a difference, is there? If both the Earth and the asteroid were traveling in straight lines, the asteroid, from the Earth’s perspective, would be at a constant bearing but decreasing range, i.e. heading directly towards us. Of course, neither the Earth or the asteroid actually are moving in straight lines, but surely the same principal holds?
January 16th, 2008 at 11:06 pm
Patience will be rewarded…
January 20th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
Dear Bad Astronomy,
Care to comment on the possiblility of an electrical discharge between the earth and TU24?
January 20th, 2008 at 11:16 pm
mars actually has a greater chance of being hit and there are quite a few close call asteroids heading that way- we could potentially be looking at the end of mars.
But ron paul will save us all- we can ride in his blimp into space and away from danger if need be. haha but im serious bout that mars stuff.
January 21st, 2008 at 12:04 pm
[…] http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2008/01/06/asteroid-to-miss-earth-january-29/ […]
January 21st, 2008 at 1:08 pm
LETS SEE THE DATA.
January 21st, 2008 at 6:32 pm
Finally someone who isn’t a moron and actually did his research on this. I did some of the same, people will believe anything and try to find anything to worry about. I say even if it was to come at us, who cares? No need to spend your last days worrying to death. Literally.
January 21st, 2008 at 7:32 pm
[…] Asteroid to miss Earth January 29 […]
January 22nd, 2008 at 10:08 am
its gonna be close but not close enough. reallt it would be scary if it was heading straight for us then we have to do something.
January 22nd, 2008 at 6:59 pm
I remember there was one in 2004, (2004 FU162, I believe) that missed by 0.00009 AU (0.03 lunar distances, or 12,000 km.) Too bad it was about 6 metres in diameter.
1.4 LD is nothing. There are ones predicted by the JPL in 2048 that will miss with a range of 0.1 LD (about 40,000 km). 99942 Apophis is predicted to hit in 2029 with a nominal range of 0.1 LD. (And its velocity is about 7.4 km/s, which means that its trajectory could be impacted by the Earth a lot.)
January 23rd, 2008 at 8:59 am
Hey Ppl i just came to know yesterday that this impact on jan 29 th is really very bad and dangerous for us …. everyone is telling that this impact is not going to effect earth bcoz to keep everyone calm …. otherwise everyone will be really worried about it …. this is what i came to know yesterday….
January 23rd, 2008 at 9:53 am
[[#
# Xie Ailunon 20 Jan 2008 at 4:00 pm
Dear Bad Astronomy,
Care to comment on the possiblility of an electrical discharge between the earth and TU24?
]]
The electric universe theory is a bunch of BS.
January 23rd, 2008 at 9:54 am
TU24 is being lured to Earth through the cosmic manipulations of Scientologists in an attempt to derail Ron Paul’s campaign. Police have responded by tasering well known Scientologists, especially the elderly and wheelchair bound. Two have died and Tom Cruise has been tasered in the eye. MacBook Air.
There. Should hit digg front page by the time I get back from the bathroom.
January 23rd, 2008 at 11:50 am
[…] tries to set the story straight that it will not only miss, but barely affect Earth at all.read more | digg […]
January 23rd, 2008 at 1:25 pm
Well damn, this is awkward - I had already gone and soiled myself and everything.
http://www.spymac.com/details/?2334927
January 23rd, 2008 at 7:00 pm
Thanks for setting everyone straight Phil. And thanks to the guy who posted that stupid video for making Ron Paul supporters look like jackasses! Things like that aren’t really helping our cause.
January 24th, 2008 at 12:24 am
Thanks for informing us about correct news.
January 24th, 2008 at 2:22 am
This is a conspiracy!! The flying saucers in Texas caused this asteroid to come AT US!!
Run!
January 24th, 2008 at 11:25 am
Shad (the name being of a bait fish could be a clue) said:
What he left out was:
“And I learned all this from my father’s brother’s nephew’s cousin’s former roommate, who’s a janitor at a company who once sold pencils to an obeservatory.”*
* = Translated into actual English to prevent internal hemorrhaging.
For those who think this might be a conspiracy, I’ll give you a quote:
We live in the Information Age, and there are literally thousands of people who watch the sky, both professional and hobbyist. So, why is only the “fearmongers” who are trying to get this *ahem* event more publicity than it deserves? I can’t begin to understand. It would seem that some people believe that MIB was based on historical evidence.
There’s a simple solution, actually. First, follow the advice of Douglas Adams. “DON’T PANIC!” First, use the handy device that you are looking at the screen of now to find information about the subject.
Then, weigh that information based on its sources. If they are vague (like the information I quoted from Shad, above), then they hold less value. If someone can cite the sources of their information, then they hold more value. If that cited source’s information has actually been independently verified by another source (or, even better, other sources), then it holds even more weight.
In the end, you’ll be more informed, and you won’t be staying up late at night listening for black helicopters.
January 25th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
Could this be the end of it all ?
January 25th, 2008 at 8:12 pm
great post… glad you agree with me about this issue. I posted a link back to your article as I was writing mine.
thanks
January 25th, 2008 at 8:25 pm
[…] BadAstronomy.com has something to say about it and basically debunks it as well, so good on them. […]
January 25th, 2008 at 10:31 pm
Waitaminnit. Ron Paul IS a blimp.
January 28th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
I agree. (With Rick James)
January 28th, 2008 at 7:02 pm
what will be the effect of this asteroid to the earth if ever?
is it the same thing happened to Russia a couple of years ago?
thanks for info!!!!!so much interesting!!!!!!
January 28th, 2008 at 8:16 pm
Its only 250 meters wide and is 1.4 LD’s from earth it isn’t really a threat just being talked about because of its closeness and being able to view it.250 meters half of which would burn up on entry 125 meter rock hits the earth isn’t going to cause extinction level events.
However look at the object that is passing near earth on March 17th Geographos, if it wasn’t so far away 48.7 LD’s they would be preparing people now because its 2.0 km - 4.5 km in diameter and would wipe out much life on earth.
January 29th, 2008 at 12:57 am
Yeah I agree with Rick James too!
FAGS!
January 29th, 2008 at 1:58 am
hey, nothing happened.
awesome.
January 29th, 2008 at 3:04 am
yet
January 29th, 2008 at 4:24 am
I hope that everything has gone well. I may see Aseroid today night in India
January 29th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
He put in the description he used the picture of IDA but he may have changed it if he saw it…I saw another video about TU24 and it used a picture of IDA as well-in fact, all the videos I saw of it were of IDA…Curious, no?
January 29th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
Man…I hate it when people use all of this false information, and don’t look at it in-depth. Seriously. Fail video is FAIL. I’m SO happy you made this article, someone posted the video on a forum I go to, and everyone started freaking out because they thought, well, today, was the end of the world. Thankfully, someone posted this link there. Tsk, tsk, tsk…some people are just too gullible.
Plus, if there was an ACTUAL threat of it hitting us, I’m sure we would’ve been warned or SOMETHING by NASA…Well, in my opinion, anyways. Plus, they would’ve tried to hit it with stuff. But of course, it’s staying a safe distance away from us.
So…thanks for making this. Hopefully now people will look more in-depth next time they see a video like THAT. ^-^;
January 31st, 2008 at 4:17 am
GEEKS!
February 26th, 2008 at 6:36 am
I think that asteriods hitting the earth, are unlikely, but one day, there is going to be a asteriod that finally hits earth. One hit the earth like over 6 million/billion years ago, which is a very long time, which means there may be a risk if one hitting the earth fairly soon. I hope not anyway
I’m 15, and have been doing alot about all this in science + theres so many things to take into concideration.
I’m not sure whether to belive one will hit when they say one is coming, there are technologies that are able change the direction they are traveling in. I hope scientists are able to do this
May 20th, 2008 at 2:29 am
Hello Im Carlee
I Think That a asteroid is going to hit earth pretty soon
July 11th, 2008 at 8:58 am
Oops that was a close miss.