Wow - We just had a near miss!

[audreyh1]

So how big a bang would that size make? Dinosaur wipe out bang? Or Siberian Tunguska Event size? Mega tsunami?

No, not that big at all. An asteroid has to be a half mile wide at least, I think, to cause climate destruction on the scale to wipe out dinosaurs (humans).

This was considerably smaller, but still megaton bomb size, big enough to wipe out a city.

"It’s impressively close," said Michael Brown, of Monash University’s school of physics and astronomy, to the Sydney Morning Herald. "I don’t think it’s quite sunk in yet. It’s a pretty big deal. [If it hits Earth], it makes the bang of a very large nuclear weapon—a very large one."

 

[NW-Bound]

One of these days, one of ReWahoo's asteroids will put us out of misery.

No more worrying about stocks and bonds, SWR, inflation, war, politics. The unfortunate ones that survive will fight among themselves for food, fend off rats, and coachroaches.

An asteroid of a diameter larger than 1km could cause the extinction of human race. For reference, the Chelyabinsk meteor of just 17m (56 ft) across injured 1,500 people and damaged over 7,000 buildings in 2012.

It is interesting to speculate though, if "the powers that be" had a 2 hour warning, but couldn't predict with much accuracy where it would hit (maybe an area hundreds of miles across?) - what should they do?

I suspect that they cannot tell where an asteroid would hit. They could not do it that well even with space junk.

They don't even know for sure if an asteroid is going to hit Earth or not until a few days or even hours before impact.

And more than 50% of the time, they don't know about near misses until it is already past, just like this one we are talking about.

 

[RunningBum]

It is interesting to speculate though, if "the powers that be" had a 2 hour warning, but couldn't predict with much accuracy where it would hit (maybe an area hundreds of miles across?) - what should they do?

I think a case can be made for saying nothing. There could be more harm done from a panic rush (like screaming "FIRE" in a theater), than the harm from the asteroid (meteor? space rock, whatever). In the process of trying to run away, some people might run into what ends up being the epicenter.

It would be hard to explain later, especially to family friends of those harmed, but it still might be best. I imagine these things have been thought out to some degree.

Hmmmm, could "first responders" be put on some sort of generic alert, w/o giving it away? Like everyone in a 300 mile area is told to report to duty, or be on high alert standby or something? Yeah, that would get out, but no one would know to drive in any certain direction, so that sort of panic stampede might be avoided?

-ERD50

I would guess that if there was any notion it would hit the US, they'd get the President and as much of his cabinet, Congress, and other so-called vital people to a bunker. For a 2 hour window, I can't imagine it'd do much more good to do anything more if you don't know where it'll hit. But would they know more each minute? For this one, it sounds like when they discovered it they also knew it would be near miss, right?

The false nuclear missile warning in Hawaii is probably a good indication of what happens. A number of people will dismiss it as a hoax. Others will take shelter. Hawaii is a bit of a special case as there's no way you're going to escape the island with very short warning, so there probably wasn't a lot of panic evacuation driving.

It seems that with some warning you can at least get emergency teams mobilized to move with medical and other help such as excavation from rubble, if they aren't directly hit.

If I'm on the fringe of the area that does get hit, I'm more likely to survive if I take some kind of cover.

And if nothing else, family might be able to get together or make quick plans how to contact each other if something does happen and some survive. If communications are down, I'd feel a lot better having my family with me than not knowing what happened to them.

So I'd be in favor of giving a warning rather than staying quiet. Strong favor, I'd say.

 

[GrayHare]

Detecting such objects with a 2-hour notice, or not at all, I don't see much difference in the outcome. AFAIK there's no defense upon short notice. People warned can get underground, but even a hardened shelter won't stand up to a direct asteroid hit, for an example see Arizona's Meteor Crater.

Somehow humans have made it this far, and some of us have made it to FIRE. That's quite an accomplishment. All good things come to an end in some manner. I'll stick to worrying about those I think can control.

 

[JoeWras]

So how big a bang would that size make? Dinosaur wipe out bang? Or Siberian Tunguska Event size? Mega tsunami?

Likely no tsunami.

The best experts I trust say it would have been similar to Tunguska. That's no little deal. Over a city? Total disaster. Over the middle of the Pacific? Maybe some cargo and unfortunate shipping crews.

Speculation is we get one of these to hit every couple of centuries. Most this size break up and cause a widespread concussion, versus craters.

 

[Janet H]

Better blow that dough before we all go.

There's an asteroid heading our way - it's got our name on it..

 

[Yoheadden]

For you asteroid watchers:

How a City-Killing Asteroid Got So Uncomfortably Close to Earth
Scientists only realized its trajectory hours before it happened.

Read in Popular Mechanics: https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/a28552286/asteroid-brushes-by-earth/

I was surprised to learn a few weeks ago that NASA, along with the ESA(European Space Agency) actually perform a week long asteroid drill. Similar to a fire drill, but this is if an asteroid has been identified to make an impact with earth. As crazy as it sounds, it was quite interesting.

I get an email from Earth Sky News. It covers all sorts of topics relating to space travel, astronomy, etc. I would highly recommend it if anyone interested.