Huge Asteroid Could Slam Into Earth In 31 Years

[Hoot]

In Egyptian myth, Apophis was the ancient spirit of evil and destruction, a demon that was determined to plunge the world into eternal darkness.

A fitting name, astronomers reasoned, for a menace now hurtling towards Earth from outer space. Scientists are monitoring the progress of a 390-metre wide asteroid discovered last year that is potentially on a collision course with the planet, and are imploring governments to decide on a strategy for dealing with it.

US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has estimated that an impact from Apophis, which has an outside chance of hitting the Earth in 2036, would release more than 100,000 times the energy released in the nuclear blast over Hiroshima.

Thousands of square kilometres would be directly affected by the blast but the whole of the Earth would see the effects of the dust released into the atmosphere.

And, scientists insist, there is actually very little time left to decide.

At a recent meeting of experts in near-Earth objects (NEOs) in London, scientists said it could take decades to design, test and build the required technology to deflect the asteroid.

Monica Grady, an expert in meteorites at the Open University, said: "It's a question of when, not if, a near Earth object collides with Earth. Many of the smaller objects break up when they reach the Earth's atmosphere and have no impact.

"However, a NEO larger than 1 kilometre (wide) will collide with Earth every few hundred thousand years and a NEO larger than 6 kilometres, which could cause mass extinction, will collide with Earth every hundred million years. We are overdue for a big one."

Tragedy in 2029?

Apophis had been intermittently tracked since its discovery in June last year but, in December, it started causing serious concern. Projecting the orbit of the asteroid into the future, astronomers had calculated that the odds of it hitting the Earth in 2029 were alarming. As more observations came in, the odds got higher.

Having more than 20 years warning of potential impact might seem plenty of time. But, at last week's meeting, Andrea Carusi, president of the Spaceguard Foundation, said that the time for governments to make decisions on what to do was now to give scientists time to prepare mitigation missions.

At the peak of concern, Apophis asteroid was placed at four out of 10 on the Torino scale a measure of the threat posed by an NEO where 10 is a certain collision which could cause a global catastrophe. This was the highest of any asteroid in recorded history and it had a 1 in 37 chance of hitting the Earth. The threat of a collision in 2029 was eventually ruled out at the end of last year.

Alan Fitzsimmons, an astronomer from Queen's University Belfast, said: "When it does pass close to us on April 13 2029, the Earth will deflect it and change its orbit. There's a small possibility that if it passes through a particular point in space, the so-called keyhole, ... the Earth's gravity will change things so that when it comes back around again in 2036, it will collide with us."

The chance of Apophis passing through the keyhole, a 600-metre patch of space, is one in 5,500 based on current information.

There are no shortage of ideas on how to deflect asteroids. The Advanced Concepts Team at the European Space Agency have led the effort in designing a range of satellites and rockets to nudge asteroids on a collision course for Earth into a different orbit.

No technology has been left unconsidered, even potentially dangerous ideas such as nuclear powered spacecraft. "The advantage of nuclear propulsion is a lot of power," said Professor Fitzsimmons.

"The negative thing is that ... we haven't done it yet. Whereas with solar electric propulsion, there are several spacecraft now that do use this technology so we're fairly confident it would work."

The favoured method is also potentially the easiest throwing a spacecraft at an asteroid to change its direction. Esa plans to test this idea with its Don Quixote mission, where two satellites will be sent to an asteroid.

One of them, Hidalgo, will collide with the asteroid at high speed while the other, Sancho, will measure the change in the object's orbit. Decisions on the actual design of these probes will be made in the coming months, with launch expected some time in the next decade. One idea that seems to have no support from astronomers is the use of explosives.

Professor Fitzsimmons. "If you explode too close to impact, perhaps you'll get hit by several fragments rather than one, so you spread out the area of damage."

In September, scientists at Strathclyde and Glasgow universities began computer simulations to work out the feasibility of changing the directions of asteroids on a collision course for Earth.

In spring next year, there will be another opportunity for radar observations of Apophis that will help astronomers work out possible future orbits of the asteroid more accurately.

If, at that stage, they cannot rule out an impact with Earth in 2036, the next chance to make better observations will not be until 2013. NASA has argued that a final decision on what to do about Apophis will have to be made at that stage.

"It may be a decision in 2013 whether or not to go ahead with a full-blown mitigation mission, but we need to start planning it before 2013," said Professor Fitzsimmons. In 2029, astronomers will know for sure if Apophis will pose a threat in 2036.

If the worst-case scenarios turn out to be true and the Earth is not prepared, it will be too late. "If we wait until 2029, it would seem unlikely that you'd be able to do anything about 2036," said Yates.

Do you think this will be the end, or will NASA work this one out??

[Simpson]

This forum isnt a huge chain letter like the other coincidence of 9/11, this is a forum i know on the bottom it says if you send this to 5 people you will find the love of your life and f**k her sensless before your 12th birthday but it isnt true trust please. if were going to die were going to die whats the point in worrying about the enevitable

[Hoot]

This forum isnt a huge chain letter like the other coincidence of 9/11, this is a forum i know on the bottom it says if you send this to 5 people you will find the love of your life and f**k her sensless before your 12th birthday but it isnt true trust please. if were going to die were going to die whats the point in worrying about the enevitable

Not a chain letter, was published in the Sun today, but not in as much detail, look it up, you'll see!

[Smo™]

Couldn't give a f**k to be honest. If it misses, yay. If not, the universe is better off without us. I'll probably be dead by then anyway.

[Hoot]

Couldn't give a f**k to be honest. If it misses, yay. If not, the universe is better off without us. I'll probably be dead by then anyway.

I'll have to agree with you there, at least we won't feel it anyway!

[Smo™]

I'll have to agree with you there, at least we won't feel it anyway!

Well, we hope not.

[Simpson]

Not a chain letter, was published in the Sun today, but not in as much detail, look it up, you'll see!

thats the type of thing im talking about weve ruined this plantet stripped it or all of its resources, our planets is subtainable but we have royally f**ked it up and unwilling to do too much about it

[Tomm]

So until a year ago, we had a 1 in 37 risk of getting wiped out in 2029. But we never heard about that. And now we have a much smaller chance? Sounds pretty dumb. In 30 years I'm sure we'll have invented some kind of ship to go and blow it up like on Armageddon (the film), anyway...

[Simpson]

And NASSA wouldnt actually tell us for the sake of economic collape, anarchy, riots think what it was like afta that flood in america people arming up to save there food stocks it would be silly so theyd keep it private and do shizzle on the sly!

[munkee]

if we have enough bombs in the world to blow the earth up (like the sun also told us) then im sure we can blow up some tiny asteroid

[JT!]

Vin Diesel will sort it out.

[N.Wood]

Also, 'cos of global warming the polar ice caps are melting, diluting the ocean meaning the conveyer belt that is the Gulf Stream is slowing down, which means less and less warm water is being brought up from the Carribean which is the only thing stopping us from being as cold as Moscow and Canada (same latitude you see).

Soooooo... that means in a few years theres a very good chance of our winters being in the minus figures permanently, like in Moscow.

That is, of course, unless we get hit my an asteroid before hand!

[Smo™]

Also, 'cos of global warming the polar ice caps are melting, diluting the ocean meaning the conveyer belt that is the Gulf Stream is slowing down, which means less and less warm water is being brought up from the Carribean which is the only thing stopping us from being as cold as Moscow and Canada (same latitude you see).

Soooooo... that means in a few years theres a very good chance of our winters being in the minus figures permanently, like in Moscow.

That is, of course, unless we get hit my an asteroid before hand!

I love snow, bring it on.

[Mark W]

Also, 'cos of global warming the polar ice caps are melting, diluting the ocean meaning the conveyer belt that is the Gulf Stream is slowing down, which means less and less warm water is being brought up from the Carribean which is the only thing stopping us from being as cold as Moscow and Canada (same latitude you see).

Soooooo... that means in a few years theres a very good chance of our winters being in the minus figures permanently, like in Moscow.

That is, of course, unless we get hit my an asteroid before hand!

Actually, I'd say the fact we're still coming out of an ice age (hence having polar caps in the first place ) is what's melting them. Global warming just means that we're less likely to dip back down as low as it did before, but either way, if we were all good girls and boys and stopped using cars or whatever tomorrow (or cows, judging from how much methane they produce every day. Thanks, Top Gear ), it'd still heat up.

Anyhoo, most scientists don't seem to have any real idea of what's going to happen, so who knows what's gonna go down I guess.

Key word in the topic title is "Could", though. The amount of "This is gonna pile into us" reports in my lifetime kinda take the piss...

[MaXsteri]

Send up a drilling team to drill 800 ft. into it and place a nuclear bomb

[JT!]

Send up a drilling team to drill 800 ft. into it and place a nuclear bomb

But don't send up that loonley guy who starts shooting that big gun.

[anzo]

what.a.load.of.dung

I mean, went we all supposed to be dead already, predicted in 1998? And the bird flu, don't forget that one, everyone ready for the 'pandemic'?

Its called a slow news day, they bring out some shitty story with fear being the topic and then sell it to gullible Joe Average, The Sun doesn't make this topic any better either, lol, words not exceeding 2 syllables to keep it simple for the retard that believes the bullshit they print.

[Trebor]

I'm with N.Wood, I'd say the smaller and smaller amounts of toasty water is a bit more of a worry - though it's only gonna be like a drop of a degree celcius every decade

Why do people buy the Sun, seriously? If someone says Page 3 then they clearly havn't seen the wonders of about 60% of the internet ...

[munkee]

Actually.. mark is right.. global warming is not because of all of our pollution. Global warming is occuring because the earth is naturally coming out of an ice age (yes we are still in one now). In a few hundred thousand years the earths temperature will plummet sending us in to another ice age. Its just a natural cycle.. not this bullshit that you hear about on the news.

[Tomm]

I mean, went we all supposed to be dead already, predicted in 1998? And the bird flu, don't forget that one, everyone ready for the 'pandemic'?

Every 35 ish years since records began, pretty much like clockwork there has been a flu pandemic. The longest there has been between two pandemics is 39 years. The last one was in 1968. We are due one very soon...

[Dr. Nick Riviera]

and he's right

[Howard Hughes]

the world is going to end in 2006 and in 2012 aswell apparently. man... its going to be a busy century.

[Siders77]

Why do people buy the Sun, seriously? If someone says Page 3 then they clearly havn't seen the wonders of about 60% of the internet ...

60%? It's more like 99.9%

[Hoot]

the world is going to end in 2006 and in 2012 aswell apparently. man... its going to be a busy century.

Jesus is also comming down in 2008 i think!

[Smo™]

the world is going to end in 2006 and in 2012 aswell apparently. man... its going to be a busy century.

'Bout time.