Duck!

[Analoguesat]

Yert another asteroid near miss on Valentines Day.

It'll be 20k miles out - inside the distance to the broadcast satellites!

wearecentralpa.com/fulltext-weather?nxd_id=426272

 

[Lazarus]

Well, it's always been clear they are vulnerable - but there's a fair bit of spare capacity of one sort or another that has accumulated over the past decade that catastrophe is pretty unlikely.


Worst that can happen is East Enders off air for a couple of weeks.






So, a Public Service, then!

 

[A nonymous]

Lets hope for the Ex-Pats that it takes out 2F

 

[2cvbloke]

Duck!

Quack!

 

[Channel Hopper]

The 2013 close approach to Earth will reduce the orbital period of 2012 DA₁₄ from 366 days to 317 days.The next notable close approach to Earth will be on 16 February 2046 when the asteroid will pass no closer than 0.0004 AU (60,000 km; 37,000 mi) from the center-point of Earth.

This is the most worrying aspect, the close passes are affecting the future trajectory by this amount. A 160 metre piece of rock is going to give at least one country some headache if it decides to make landfall.

 

[2cvbloke]

This is the most worrying aspect, the close passes are affecting the future trajectory by this amount. A 160 metre piece of rock is going to give at least one country some headache if it decides to make landfall.

I don't think it's that worrying, space exploration technology continues to advance, so come 2046, we could probabaly launch a bunch of astronauts up into orbit to catch a ride on the thing, plant some thrusters onto it and then use those to control it's direction and push it out of it's shrinking orbit, then hop off the thing and fall back to earth in a return vehicle, thus saving a country or two a major headache...

The only factor that would prevent such things are the current politics and whether they get better or worse over the next 33 years...

 

[Analoguesat]

Lets hope for the Ex-Pats that it takes out 2F

I KNEW someone was going to say that when I posted the initial report!

 

[A nonymous]

Yes i know but how funny would it be

 

[excollier]

Sky subs would increase :-rub

 

[davemurgtroyd]

Sky subs would increase :-rub

Highly unlikely - Sky do not own the satellites but merely lease space on them - what would increase is insurance premiums across the board.

 

[PaulR]

Highly unlikely - Sky do not own the satellites but merely lease space on them - what would increase is insurance premiums across the board.

But $ly would be paying out these higher premiums. They would then, no doubt, try to pass on the increased expenditure and so:

Sky subs would increase :-rub

 

[Analoguesat]

Another near miss!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21325992

 

[Piltdownpaul]

Read down from this link will give you information about possible times of sightings......

http://www.jb.man.ac.uk/astronomy/nightsky/

 

[Channel Hopper]

Completely unrelated of course


The asteroid's arrival was preceded by damaging meteor event in Russia on Friday - but indications from the meteor's path suggest that the two events are entirely unrelated - just a cosmic coincidence.

http://rt.com/news/russia-meteor-meteorite-asteroid-chelyabinsk-291/

 

[Piltdownpaul]

You dont want to be the way of one of those things,it'll hit you before you hear it. Some great footage though, going to be tricky to spot the asteroid i feel,especially as my skybox arrived this morning and be messing with that all day.

 

[Channel Hopper]

Apparently it was shot at before coming down in multiple pieces.

http://rt.com/news/meteorite-crash-urals-chelyabinsk-283/

 

[Piltdownpaul]

Risky thing to do surely....

 

[Channel Hopper]

These were almost certainly automatic defence measures, the original meteor at ten tonnes or so would/could have caused much more damage.

 

[Channel Hopper]

Confirmation the two events are not related

https://twitter.com/esaoperations/status/302334765812572160

which suggests there is likely to be many more coming down over the next couple of days.

Glass half full etc....

 

[Channel Hopper]

Amazing shockwave

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKx97csfPy0