JGeropoulas
The Living Force
Laura’s recent article that comet cluster heading towards us (Forget About Global Warming: We're One Step From Extinction!) was an excellent “crash� course (no pun intended--but a good one!) for anyone unfamiliar with her earlier articles. For me, the stunning news was the tally of all the new “moons" that have accumulated around our neighboring planets in a progression towards Earth! Especially sobering is the fact that Jupiter began acquiring these new “moons" in the late ‘90’s, which means that all those “moons" which dodged Jupiter’s gravity are due to arrive at Earth any time now.
Out of curiosity, I did a quick search for recent “near misses" Here’s what I got with just a few minutes of effort. All bold is my emphasis.
Note the trend of the "near misses" getting "nearer" to Earth (d=DISTANCE TO OUR MOON):
January, 2002: 2.00d
March 8, 2002: 1.20d
June 14, 2002: .33d
August 17, 2002: 1.00d
Sept. 27, 2003: .25d
March 18, 2004: .10d
Out of curiosity, I did a quick search for recent “near misses" Here’s what I got with just a few minutes of effort. All bold is my emphasis.
Note the trend of the "near misses" getting "nearer" to Earth (d=DISTANCE TO OUR MOON):
January, 2002: 2.00d
March 8, 2002: 1.20d
June 14, 2002: .33d
August 17, 2002: 1.00d
Sept. 27, 2003: .25d
March 18, 2004: .10d
January, 2002
EARTH ESCAPES BRUSH WITH KILLER ASTEROID
Richard Stenger, CNN Sci-Tech
(CNN) -- An asteroid that could pulverize a country zipped close by the Earth in January, 2002, only weeks after astronomers first noticed the big space boulder heading in our direction. The Near Earth Object brightened enough for even simple telescopes to spot just before it raced past our planet on Monday, only 2 TIMES THE DISTANCE TO THE MOON. The range might seem like enough to breath easy, about 600,000 kilometres (375,000 miles), but many scientists classify it as a relatively close call.
The asteroid, officially known as 2001 YB5, measures between 300 and 400 meters (1,000 to 1,300 feet) in width. [Note, the size of the "Tunguska Object" that devastated nearly 800 square miles of Siberian forest on June 30, 1908 is estimated at about 100 meters.] If such a rock were to smash into the planet, it would unleash the same amount of energy as many nuclear bombs, astronomers estimate. "The impact would be quite tremendous. It could essentially wipe out a medium-sized country," said Benny Peiser of the Royal Astronomical Society in Great Britain. "The environmental consequences would be regional but the social and economic consequences would be global."
Close encounters with giant space rocks are not uncommon. "Asteroids comparable to 2001 YB5 could strike the Earth as frequently as once every 5,000 years," Peiser said.
March 8, 2002
WHEW! STEALTH ASTEROID NEARLY BLINDSIDES EARTH
Richard Stenger, CNN
(CNN) -- A sizable asteroid zipped near our planet on March 8, 2002 without anyone noticing because it traveled through an astronomical blind spot, scientists said. The space boulder passed Earth within 288,000 miles (461,000 kilometres) -- or 1.2 TIMES THE DISTANCE TO THE MOON but since it came from the direction of the sun, scientists did not observe it until four days later…was one of the 10 closest known asteroids to approach Earth, astronomers said.
"Asteroid 2002 EM7 took us by surprise. It is yet another reminder of the general impact hazard we face," said Benny Peiser, a European scientist who monitors the threat of Earth-asteroid collisions. "If it pierced the atmosphere, the approximately 70-meter-long rock, this object could have disintegrated and unleashed the energy equivalent of a 4-megaton nuclear bomb," researchers said.
"If it were over a populated area, like Atlanta, it would have basically flattened it, " said Gareth Williams, associate director of the International Astronomical Union Minor Planet Center in Boston, Massachusetts.
"If one comes from the direction of the sun, we're not going to see it," Williams said. "Often these objects are outside of the Earth's orbit for a significant amount of time. "
June 14, 2002
COSMIC COLLISION UPDATES AND LINKS
On June 14, 2002, an asteroid the size of a football field came within 75,000 miles (120,000 kilometres of Earth -- less than 1/3rd THE DISTANCE TO THE MOON -- and we didn't know about it for three days. In an Associated Press story, near-Earth asteroid researcher Grant Stokes stated that an asteroid of that size "passes within a lunar distance of Earth" about once a week on the average, but most of them escape notice since the major projects searching for near-earth objects concentrate on larger bodies.
[Did you catch that?! An asteroid the size of the "Tunguska Object" that devastated nearly 800 square miles of Siberian forest in 1908 comes as close as our moon "about ONCE A WEEK ON AVERAGE"! I wonder if that average is from past decades or recent years? If from past decades, then the looming increases are all the more forboding.]
August 17, 2002
'NEAR MISS' ASTEROID WHIZZES PAST EARTH
Star gazers got their telescopes and binoculars ready over the weekend, trying to spot an asteroid which came closer to the Earth than any space rock of its size has in 77 years.The 800-metre-wide asteroid whizzed over North American skies August 17, 2002, missing the planet by about 530,000 kilometres (333,370 miles), SLIGHTLY MORE THAN THE DISTANCE TO THE MOON but still a "near miss" by astronomers' standards.
Star gazer David Roles said it was a moment he'll never forget. "Oh I'm really happy that we got a glimpse of it," he said. "Because it's not very often we see an object that close to the Earth." To put the asteroid's size into perspective, scientists described it as being roughly eight times the size of a regulation Canadian football field.
But looking at it from Earth through a telescope, it appeared to be nothing more than a shooting star.
September 27, 2003
CLOSEST ASTEROID YET FLIES PAST EARTH
An asteroid about the size of a small house passed just 88,000 kilometres (54,976 miles) from the Earth by on September 27, 2003 - the closest approach of a natural object ever recorded [1/4th THE DISTANCE TO THE MOON] . (Geostationary communication satellites circle the Earth 42,000 km from the planet's centre.)
Also, I came across some interesting comments and statistics on the subject on this siteMarch 18, 2004
Asteroid 2004 FH, about 30 metres (100 feet) in diameter, passed approximately [/b]43,000 kilometres (26,500 miles)[/b] above the Earth's surface (1/10th THE DISTANCE TO THE MOON). They estimated that similar sized asteroids come as close about every two years. Astronomers had detected it just three days before.
1.7 EARTH IMPACT BY AN ASTEROID: PROSPECTS AND EFFECTS
…the population of asteroids of the size of the Tunguska meteor or the Arizona impact probably exceeds 100,000 crossing Earth's orbit. But we know of precious few of these small asteroids because they are difficult to detect using today's telescopes until they are very close to us (and possibly just about to hit us!).
For a land impact, it can be said in general that an object of roughly 75 meters diameter can destroy a city, a 160 meter object can destroy a large urban area, a 350 meter object can destroy a small state, and a 700 meter object can destroy a small country.
It's not easy to determine the frequency of tsunamis in the world historically. Unusual debris has been found in high places in many parts of the world which could be the result of a tsunami, though it's not easy to determine what happened for sure and when, by the ordinary nature of the material. There has been little effort to date to systematically assess the frequency and nature of tsunamis well before the 20th century. Recorded history by civilizations along the Atlantic Ocean has not noted major tsunamis, though there wouldn’t be many people around to report it. There’s not much recorded history from many coastal regions in the world, and many long coastlines were devoid of cities.
A mainstream scientific analysis currently estimates that an asteroid-induced tsunami exceeding 100 meters in height along the entire coast probably occurs once every few thousand years, which slightly exceeds written history in most of these ocean coastal regions. We've been living on the edge for a long time now. Such a 100 meter tsunami would cause unprecedented damage to now-developed low lying areas all along the U.S. east coast, and may totally submerge vast areas in Europe such as in Holland and Denmark. A 100 meter tsunami would travel inland about 22 km (14 miles) and a 200 meter tsunami would travel inland about 55 km (34 miles) (Hills, 1994 paper ref.).
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