>>The antiquities, could well mean the ancient structures in Greece and Italy. Seven stadia, by the way is a little over a Kilometer...bigger than the current estimate for 1998 OX4. >>

Another strike in the same area would be C2 Q81, Nostradamus does call for a solar strike somewhere in this area (again).

 

ASTEROID NEWS WHITLEY STREIBER ON COAST TO COAST 10-20-2000 1st half hour DEEP IMPACT PROJECT TO TRY TO MOVE 1998OX4 IN 2004 SO IT DOESN'T HIT EARTH IN 2014 THE DEEP IMPACT PLAN
THIS ONE MUST HAVE MISSED US BECAUSE YOU AND I ARE STILL HERE!!! Saturday, Dec. 16, 2000. Asteroid Could End World Monday By Kevin O'Flynn Staff Writer Russian scientists warned this week that life as we know it could end as early as Monday, if any one of the massive asteroids whizzing through the cosmos should happen to be making a beeline for Earth. "There is a threat to humanity," said Vadim Simonenko, deputy head of the Institute of Technical Physics. Simonenko was among the impressive array of experts attending a news conference with a title straight from a 1950s B-movie: "Asteroid Danger: How to Save the Earth From Cosmic Catastrophe." The conference, held Thursday at the House of Journalists, brought together astronomers, physicists and nuclear experts to urge global cooperation in saving the world from a devastating asteroid collision that could leave millions dead or even wipe out civilization entirely. With asteroids measuring up to 10 kilometers in diameter and traveling at speeds of up to 20,000 kilometers an hour, Earth would stand little chance if it was hit by a big one. The Thursday gathering — including Simonenko, whose institute is a part of the Russian Nuclear Center — called for the organization of a world body to scour space for incoming objects and destroy any potentially dangerous flying objects with nuclear missiles. In the case that preemptive measures fail, the citizens of the world should be prepared to relocate to the moon, the scientists added. "After a collision with one of these asteroids, there'll be only fragments left of Earth," said Alexander Bagrov, senior scientist at the Institute of Astronomy. Bagrov added that current technology allows experts to detect incoming objects no earlier than three days ahead of time — hence the suggestion that the day of reckoning may come as early as Monday. Bagrov, a tall, thin balding man with a moonlike face, led the rallying cry of the doom-mongers, telling grim tales of other planets done in by asteroids. Five billion years ago, he said, the planet Phaeton — located between Mars and Jupiter, the area where the orbit of most asteroids lie — exploded into millions of bits after being hit by an asteroid 1,000 meters wide. "And [Phaeton] was many times bigger than Earth," Bagrov warned. "After a collision with one of these asteroids there'd by only fragments left of Earth." The asteroid that destroyed Phaeton also went on to cause the demise of life on Mars, when one of the fragments of the shattered planet whacked into Mars, causing it to sink into a grim nuclear winter that killed all life forms and turned it the bright red color it is today. The only trace of life left on Mars is a "face with tears on its cheek" visible on the planet's surface, Bragov said. Comets and asteroids have been slamming into Earth since time began. A huge asteroid that hit the planet 65 million years ago is believed to have killed off the dinosaurs. But it has only been in the last 10 to 20 years that scientists have started to seriously consider the threat that asteroids, comets and other so-called NEOs, or Near Earth Objects, potentially pose to contemporary civilization. "Ten years ago it was thought fantastic," Simonenko said of the concept that life on Earth could be wiped out by a NEO hit. Everything changed, however, when an American scientist proved that a huge crater in the state of Arizona was caused by a meteorite and not, as previously thought, by volcanic activity. Scientists now agree that there are millions of asteroids out there that have a chance of hitting the Earth. If an object of more than 10 kilometers in diameter hits the Earth then there's not much chance of anyone surviving, according to a British task force that earlier this year published research on NEOs. Luckily, the chance of that happening is about once every hundred million years, the research said. More dangerous are smaller objects of one kilometer or more which could destroy cities, change the climate and cause huge tidal waves all over the Earth. There are roughly 1,000 such asteroids, roughly half of which have been identified as unlikely to strike the Earth. An ongoing project at NASA hopes to identify an additional 40 percent of the asteroids within the next decade. Even smaller objects — those under a kilometer — would still cause devastation equivalent to a number of nuclear bombs, but few of these have been detected. Russia has already been hit by two large asteroids in the last 100 years. In 1908 an asteroid crashed into Tunguska, a remote area of Siberia, causing devastation across an area the size of London. Nearly 40 years later another asteroid hit Sikote-Alin, also in Siberia, smashing more than a hundred craters into the land. If one of these asteroids had hit a city then millions of people would have died. Alone, Russia has little funding to devote to NEO studies. According to Anatoly Zaitsev, the head engineer at the Scientific Production Association, a manufacturer of satellites, an international body is needed to track all flying objects and act quickly with nuclear missiles if needed. Zaitsev said that there is also a need to discuss the practical and moral problems associated with NEO vigilance. Do you really want to tell the citizens of Perm that a meteorite is headed for their town square, he wondered, pointing to the rash of suicides and general panic caused two years ago in the United States when the Haley-Bop comet came unusually close to Earth. If the big one does come, Zaitsev added, people should be prepared to evacuate the planet — potentially relocating to the moon. But how will we choose who goes, someone asked. "Ah, that's the problem," Zaitsev said. Article from the Moscow Times: http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2000/12/16/003.html
Asteroid Discovered Last Week, Much Closer Than Toutatis...11/02/00 by Mitch Battros (ECTV) This latest article by NASA could not stress my concern more pointedly. Yesterday another asteroid named 2000 UG11 came 10 times closer than 'Toutatis', which zipped by a day earlier. NASA now admits this new asteroid (2000 UG 11) was just found last week. Yes, that's right just discovered last week and 10 times closer. I hope some of you will better understand my sharp words and concern over NASA's attitude and Public Relations policy. If ancient texts hold true, there is no place for NASA's cutesy attitude, minimizing a certain and real danger. As a Certified Trauma Resolution Therapist, I can tell you first hand, it will be the sudden shock of information or event, which will cause much more damage then disclosing true information allowing people to be better informed and prepared. The only acceptation might be what is known as a "planet buster". Obviously there is no way to prepare for such an event. However, some would make a good argument, it would help families come together for a final gathering and spiritual preparedness. But this would never happen. All governments are trained to derail civil unrest and anarchy. NASA is convinced the better way is to not tell the public what is happening in our universe. Their belief is based on an antiquated report released in 1960 better know as the "Brooking Report". The statistician team was ordered to gather demographics to find how people would act if information was released stating there is intelligent life outside of earth. Their findings was that of chaos, mass hysteria, anarchy. Basically a collapse of our basic fundamental belief system. As a result, our government (and perhaps that of the world), decided any such information would be deemed "National Security", therefore will remain undisclosed to the public. Although the Brookings Report was directed at intelligent life outside Earth's, I believe the same holds true for 'earth changing events'. So the question will remain, would you rather be informed as to unfolding events that effect us all, or would you rather not know until after the fact. (total annihilation withstanding). Reminder, ancient text states "life will end as we know it". This does not mean all life will end. It will simply be part of a bigger plan I call "The Transition". A moving into another place. Some may call it another dimension, or higher vibration, or the 5th world. Whatever the words, I believe the meaning to be the same. (mb) (NASA) While the large asteroid 4179 Toutatis captured most of the fanfare on Halloween as it passed 29 lunar distances from Earth, another near-Earth object glided silently by almost ten times closer. 2000 UK11, a house-sized (25-60 meter) space rock discovered just last week, was only 4 lunar distances away from our planet on Nov. 1st. On Nov. 7, 2000, a bright near-Earth asteroid will zip past our planet just 6.1 times farther away than the Moon. The 250 meter-wide space rock, called 2000 UG11, was discovered by MIT's LINEAR search program on Oct. 25th. Amateur astronomers with 8 inch or larger telescopes can spot UG11 for themselves as it brightens to 13.5 magnitudes next Tuesday. Around the time of its closest approach, the asteroid will race through the constellations Orion and Taurus as fast as 1 degree per hour. 2000 UK11 is a rare "Aten" object; its orbit is almost entirely inside the orbit of Earth. Amateur astronomers with telescopes capable of tracking 18-20th magnitude objects can spot the asteroid for themselves as it races away from Earth in the days ahead. See Orbit: http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/db?name=2000+UG11 Mitch Battros Producer - Earth Changes TV http://www.earthchangesTV.com
NASA Is Listening!!! by Mitch Battros (ECTV) Thanks to you, NASA has decided to change their policy and has implemented a clearing house of sorts for newly discovered asteroids. I believe NASA's actions are a direct response to our very serious concerns and questioning of policy. Here is NASA's official statement... November 3rd 2000 " Recognizing the public interest and concern over possible impacts from small Near-Earth Asteroids (NEAs), the International Astronomical Union has established a process to provide international expert review of any discoveries or calculations that predict a close encounter with a non-neglibible chance of future impact." http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news114.html Perhaps NASA is listening. It is now reported that over 400 asteroids of 1 kilometer or larger (0.62 miles) have been found in just the last year. It has been suggested there are thousands of other asteroids under 1 kilometer. For comparison and to grasp the importance of asteroids much smaller, the one that hit Arizona, known as Meteor Crater, was a mere 150 feet across. http://www.meteorcrater.com/Mcrater.htm Once again, I wish to thank all of you who helped bring this recent action into play. Never forget...You Do Make A Difference! Mitch Battros Producer - Earth Changes TV http://www.earthchangesTV.com
http://www.ngnews.com/news/2000/10/10252000/asteroids_3214.asp SPACE Estimate of Killer Asteroids Zooms By Albuquerque Journal October 25, 2000 More potential Earth-killing asteroids orbit our sun than recent estimates have suggested, according to new data collected with New Mexico telescopes. About 1,100 large Earth-crossing asteroids are likely to be zinging through the solar system, according to an analysis by Massachusetts Institute of Technology researcher Scott Stuart. The risk of one colliding with Earth is still tiny, said Grant Stokes, head of the New Mexico asteroid-hunting project. But a larger number increases the odds of a catastrophic crash. "If there are twice as many, there are twice the odds, but the risks are really small," Stokes said. Previous estimates, published earlier this year, put the number at 500 to 1,000. Stuart used data from a pair of asteroid-hunting telescopes near Socorro to develop the estimate. The telescopes are part of a project called LINEAR—the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research Program —which has revolutionized the asteroid-hunting business in recent years. Of the 190 potential killer asteroids discovered since 1995, 135 were found by LINEAR, 10 times more than its closest competitor. LINEAR's two telescopes scan the sky each night, taking multiple images of each spot in the sky and then scanning them with a computer looking for objects that move. Finding large numbers of asteroids allowed Stuart to attempt to estimate the overall population of the flying, village-sized rocks, Stokes said. The study looks at the number of what are called Earth-crossing asteroids larger than 1 kilometer -- a little more than a half mile—in diameter. Many large asteroids orbit the sun harmlessly beyond Mars, but occasionally one spirals out of that orbit on a path toward the inner solar system, setting up the possibility it could collide with Earth. Any large asteroid could wreak havoc on Earth, but a collision with one above 1 kilometer is thought of as an extinction-causing event. No asteroid that large has hit Earth in recorded history, but in the distant past, such a collision is believed to have killed off the dinosaurs. NASA has set a goal of finding 90 percent of these large, threatening asteroids over the next 10 years, so their orbits can be tracked to see if any are on a collision course. By finding so many asteroids, the scientists finally have enough data to begin doing a statistical census of the population of the killer rocks. Scientists do not know how many potential killer asteroids there are. But they can estimate based on the amount of the sky they have searched and the number they have found there. Previous estimates have been based on a far smaller number of asteroids, making them less accurate, Stokes said. Four hundred of the dangerous asteroids have been discovered since scientists began trying to find them. None are in orbits that pose a threat for the foreseeable future. Stokes said LINEAR's larger-than-expected census of large near-Earth asteroids is a result of the surprising number of such objects in orbits that take them high above the plane of our solar system. The estimate of 1,100 is significantly larger than the previous best guess of 500 to 1,000, a number published in January based on a smaller number of discoveries with a telescope in Hawaii. Stokes said LINEAR's estimate is more in line with calculations done by the late Eugene Shoemaker, who estimated the likely number of objects by counting craters on the moon. (c) 2000 Albuquerque Journal
As Friday Football Fever raged on the fields across Kansas, lights were seen in sky. Witnesses See Fire in the Sky WICHITA, Kansas, October 13, 2000 – Kansas watches as a strange sight lights up the night. “THERE’S ONE BIG WHITE LIGHT and around it was like five little balls, just lights, just following them. And then thru the sky there was just like vapors and vapors were like different colors – blues and oranges. It was just odd,” said eyewitness Anthony Davis of Valley Center. We’ve had reports of the fire in the sky from all over the Midwest. From McCook, Nebraska in the northwest, through Great Bend to El Dorado. In Wichita, hundreds saw the sight. Gary Bishop of south Wichita said, “So I looked over my shoulder and right across the sky from the southwest to the northwest, down a little bit. There was a meteor that left a trail of blue lights. It was beautiful.” As the object screamed across the sky, 911 couldn’t keep up with all the calls that were coming in. 911 supervisors say they had more phones ringing than dispatchers to answer them. They say they had around 150 calls from witnesses saying they saw everything from space aliens to a plane crash. While dispatchers were getting all those calls on the meteor shower, they did have a serious car accident to deal with as well. Luckily, supervisors say that call got through without much of a wait and response time wasn’t affected. So what was it in the sky? We talked to the North American Air Defense Command to find out. Master Sergeant Larry Lincoln told us, “It seems to be a very heavy meteor shower. Our weather people told us to expect something like this from the 10th to the 29th of October, with the heaviest coming down around the 15th. It seems to probably be coming down a little early. The mission of NORAD U.S. Space Command is tracking. Tracks man-made objects, satellites, things like that. Things that are in orbit. So in this case again, it’s a meteor shower. We would not necessarily see that heavy the I.R. signature, probably wouldn’t be significant enough, so that’s what people are witnessing.” That’s the official word from NORAD in Colorado Springs. Although no one at the U.S. Space Command there witnessed the event. Their response is based upon our accounts of the lights. ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Subj: [earthchanges] It was a comet nucleus (10-13-2000) Date: 10/14/2000 3:54:10 PM Central Daylight Time From: glen.deen@gte.net (Glen Deen) Reply-to: earthchanges@egroups.com After reviewing my Sony digital 8 mm videotape that I took yesterday morning (October 13, 2000) many times and examining many frames individually, I now believe that this object was a comet nucleus. The stubby, fuzzy "wings" are gas jets, and the cylindrical body was about 1.2 arcminutes in diameter and 2.8 arcminutes long at closest approach. I used the Moon to calibrate the image scale of my 20x telephoto zoom lens. If anyone will volunteer to capture video snips and upload them to the web, I will send them a free copy of my tape. Specify either digital 8 mm or VHS format. The entire sequence is less than two minutes long, but most of that shows me searching for the image, so all you see are high thin clouds moving around the frame. After all the empty frames are edited out, I imagine there might be as much as 30 seconds of tape with the comet visible in the frame. All others please send a self-addressed, stamped box with a blank tape in it or the cash equivalent. There are a few brief intervals when the camera was still (between search sweeps when I was fumbling for the zooming control), and I can measure the angular velocity as a function of time. When I do this, I believe I can compute an approximate orbit for this object. The preliminary values range from 2.9 arcminutes/second to 17.5 arcminutes/second. This rules out an airplane. If we assign a velocity of 600 mph = 0.268 km/s to the airplane, and we give it an angular velocity of 0.00509 radians/second we find its altitude would have to be 53 km or 173,000 feet. That rules out a jet aircraft. If we assign a velocity of 100 mph, we get an altitude of 29,000 feet. I don't think that anything but a jet aircraft can fly that high, and I don't think they fly that slow at that altitude. We could postulate a hang-glider going 34 mph at 10,000 feet or 17 mph at 5,000 feet, but this was no hang glider. This comet nucleus did not enter the atmosphere because there was no plasma trail. It was not the Space Shuttle because it appeared to have a polar orbit, and because I could resolve its shape, and it does not have delta wings. It is not an alien spacecraft because they don't use rocket jets to maneuver. We already ruled out an airplane because the angular velocity is too high, but we also note that it had no vapor trail, and there was no sound. (We didn't rule out a hang glider except visually). All you hear on the sound track is me talking and birds singing. I hope that after I plot its angular velocity vs. time I will be able to prove that it is in a solar orbit. That would mean it is not a hang glider and it is not in Earth orbit. The fact that it had the same surface brightness as the Moon is consistent with it being illuminated by the Sun. The Sun had already risen, and this object was about 15º west of my meridian. Isn't it curious that I observed this comet at 12:45:00 UT, exactly 1 hour after my predicted time of 11:45:00 UT? Isn't it curious that at 11:45:00 UT the comet was in the plane defined by my observing location and the Earth's polar axis? I needed that hour to be able to see the comet's illuminated surface in the daylight sky. Isn't it curious that the weather here in Plano, Texas had been cloudy all week, and the sky cleared that Friday morning. Then after I made the observation, the sky became completely overcast within an hour. People in California would still have had a night sky, but they would also see the unilluminated side of the comet, which would therefore be invisible. People near my meridian or East of it should have been able to observe this comet, but they had to know when and where to look. It is likely that some other people did observe this comet visually. But would they know where to report their observations? I wonder. My wife observed with me during the 11:45 UT interval, but then she had to go to work, so she missed seeing it. More later after I do some calculations. Peace, ---- Glen W. Deen, BSEE 820 Baxter Drive Plano, Texas 75025 USA Phone: 972-517-6980 Dayton C. Miller observed the ether wind: "The Ether-Drift Experiment" Reviews of Modern Physics, 5, 202-242 (1933). Ether research: http://www.egroups.com/list/glensether/ Predictions: http://www.egroups.com/list/astro-revelation/ MORE RESEARCH AND PIC FROM THIS EVENT
Wednesday September 27, 2000 Square Craters Found On Eros By Leonard David Senior Space Writer, SPACE.com WASHINGTON -- Space scientists are squaring off with asteroid Eros. The Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) spacecraft has eyed unusual square craters on asteroid 433 Eros, about 109 million miles (176 million kilometers) from Earth. The NEAR photo find suggests that the space rock is riddled with a system of faults, fractures, and cracks. Such craters, scientists say, offer new clues to the age and history of Eros. "There are weird-shaped craters on Eros. It's turned out to be a very complex place," said Olivier Barnouin-Jha, a crater expert on the NEAR project at the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland. APL built the NEAR, which was launched in February 1996, and serves as mission control for the asteroid-surveying spacecraft. Barnouin-Jha told SPACE.com that the odd-shaped craters appear to have been formed within pre-existing faults on Eros. As the craters were being created, those faults served to contain the shock wave resulting from the explosive smacks into Eros' surface, he said. Square pegs and round holes Eros is not the only solar system body to have square holes amid round craters. "We've actually seem them before. They are usually seen with smaller craters. They've been observed on the moon, although for different reasons. We're seeing a lot more of these with the new Mars Global Surveyor data as well, Barnouin-Jha said. Here on Earth, stamped into the desert near Winslow, Arizona, is the Barringer Meteor Crater. Created some 50,000 years ago, its rim takes on a square-shaped look due to fractured terrain around the impact site. On Eros, sightings of squared-off craters are on the rise. "There are numbers of these craters. Once you start looking you see more and more of them," Barnouin-Jha said. The NEAR probe now orbiting Eros has pegged the asteroid to be a consolidated body, but with a ubiquitous fabric of ridges and grooves. That suggests that Eros might have an extensively fractured interior. Playing the cratering record Barnouin-Jha said that studies of Eros' craters show that the asteroid is quite strong. "Gravity is not playing a very large role at all in controlling cratering on Eros," he said. That is consistent with the bigger picture, that the asteroid is peppered with loads of faults, through and through. Yet Eros is not a broken rubble pile, Barnouin-Jha said. "I think we're going to learn about cratering history, the evolution of Eros, and I think of asteroids in general," he said. Picture palace The NEAR spacecraft has been circuiting Eros since February. It is now flying in a 62-mile (100 kilometer) circular orbit above the asteroid's surface. A low-altitude flight -- down to within 3 miles (5 kilometers) of the surface -- is slated for NEAR on October 25. Louise Prockter, member of the NEAR imaging team at APL, said "we're overwhelmed with images" of Eros. About 105,000 pictures have been relayed to Earth. Given all those Eros pictures of the "hard body" asteroid, there never is a dull moment, Prockter said. "I can definitely say that's never the case. There's something every day that comes in that we haven't seen before that is really cool," she said.
Friday September 22, 2000 Eros Unveiled: New Clues to Solar System's Birth By Lee Siegel Science Writer, SPACE.com The first known landslides on an asteroid have been spotted on Eros, a 20-mile-long, potato-shaped space rock that is providing new clues about the formation of the solar system and the birth of planets. The NEAR-Shoemaker spacecraft, which has orbited Eros since Valentine’s Day, has also determined the asteroid is not a huge rubble pile, but is solid rock with a surface layer of rubble created by numerous collisions early in its 4.6-billion-year history. The collisions pocked Eros with craters, cracked it to produce ridges and grooves, and made landslides tumble down steep slopes. The bland-yellowish asteroid’s mass is one-billionth that of Earth’s, and it’s gravity thousands of times less powerful. Nevertheless, the gravity is strong enough to pull landslides downhill and keep the rubble from flying into space as Eros rotates once every 5.27 hours. Those are among findings of the first published studies from the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) Shoemaker spacecraft’s $224 million mission to Eros. The studies, conducted by dozens of scientists using NEAR’s camera and instruments, were printed September 22 in the journal Science. NEAR-Shoemaker, named for late planetary geologist Gene Shoemaker, is the first spacecraft to rendezvous with an asteroid instead of flying past. Primitive hard rock NEAR’s discoveries at Eros are "helping us define the record of how the solar system and the planets formed," said Maria Zuber, a planetary scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The spacecraft determined Eros is a mostly solid sample of rock left over from the solar system’s birth almost 4.6 billion years ago, when solid objects theoretically condensed from a swirling disk of gas and dust, then clumped together to form planets. The asteroid’s solidity and primordial composition suggest Eros did not form when smaller pieces clumped together, but instead broke off an even bigger object during a huge collision as the solar system was born. That means scientists are closer to showing that gas and dust in the earliest solar system were able to condense into objects large enough – about 60 miles (100 kilometers) wide – to gravitate toward each other to form planets, Zuber said. Eros is 20 miles (32 kilometers) long, so its parent body must have been almost big enough to have planet-forming potential, she said. NEAR-Shoemaker confirmed that Eros – a member of the S-class or most common type of asteroid – has the same mineral makeup as the most common meteorites, ordinary chondrites, which are believed to have been blasted off asteroids during collisions. Meteorites "give us the most detailed chemistry and chronology of the early solar system so we can tell how it all came together, how quickly the stuff that made the planets cool and condense," said MIT scientist Richard Binzel. Researchers long suspected chondrites came from S-class asteroids, located mostly in the inner part of the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. NEAR has helped astronomers definitively tie the meteorites’ chronology of solar system formation to their "return address" in the inner asteroid belt, Binzel said. "We are getting an idea of what was likely there, just beyond the orbit of Mars, just before the solar system formed," said Don Yeomans, a planetary scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "These are the same chunks that formed that Earth." A groovy mystery NEAR-Shoemaker’s X-ray spectrometer revealed the asteroid contains low levels of aluminum relative to silicon and magnesium, indicating it never re-melted or formed layers like Earth, and thus is unchanged since the solar system’s birth. Nevertheless, a spiral pattern of grooves encircling the asteroid resembles layering – a mystery not yet solved, Zuber said. Zuber led a study in which NEAR-Shoemaker bounced a laser beam off Eros 8 million times to precisely measure distances, producing a three-dimensional topographic map of Eros, named for the Greek god of love. The method determined the asteroid is 20.318 miles (32.697 kilometers) long – a bit different than earlier estimates. It is almost 7 miles (11 kilometers) tall and deep. The map and some of NEAR’s 103,300 photos showed Eros has a 3.4-mile-wide (5.5-kilometer-wide) impact crater provisionally named Psyche, for Eros’ beloved, and 6-mile-wide (10-kilometer-wide) saddle-shaped depression named Himeros, after Eros’ primary attendant. The saddle is a low ridge connecting two peaks. Himeros, which is less cratered than the rest of Eros, may be the surface where Eros broke off a larger object that was struck by yet another space rock, Zuber said. Or Himeros may just be the place where part of Eros was knocked off during a collision with a similar-size object. Slip-sliding away Once thought to be a rubble pile held together only by gravity, Eros’ topography shows the asteroid was shaped both by gravity and by the material strength of its solid bedrock. Evidence of gravity at work includes lighter-colored areas where rubble landslides moved down crater walls or other slopes; places where impacts pulverized rock, which fell to form crater rims; and bowl-shaped impact craters typical of planets and moons with gravity fields. Landslides indicate the asteroid is "not just a stagnant body sitting out there," said Zuber, who knew of no previous observations of landslides on an asteroid. She said the slides likely were triggered when other objects hit Eros. Evidence that Eros is mostly consolidated rock comes from steep slopes. Four percent of the slopes exceed 30 degrees – the angle of repose needed for loose rock to slide – so they must be solid rock. Some impact craters on Eros have angular rather than circular shapes and have subdued rims – signs that incoming objects, moving slowly in low gravity, dented hard rock rather than rubble, Zuber said. Long ridges and grooves on Eros’ surface may be surface signs of fractures that extend through Eros and were caused by impacts, said Zuber and imaging team leader Joseph Veverka of Cornell University. Other signs of impacts on Eros include blocks of rock, up to 330 feet (100 meters) wide, that were ejected when other objects hit Eros. Tracking the spacecraft as it was tugged by Eros’ gravity, the NEAR radio science team calculated the asteroid’s mass as 14,742 trillion pounds (6,687 trillion kilograms). "It’s about one-billionth the mass of the Earth," said Yeomans, the team leader. "A 200-pound (90-kilogram) person on Earth would weigh about an ounce (28 grams) on Eros. It wouldn’t take an Olympian to leap completely off this thing." The measurements were used to calculate that Eros has a density 2.67 times greater than water, a bit lower than Earth’s crust. That suggests Eros is not completely solid rock, but has surface rubble up to 330 feet (100 meters) thick, Zuber said. Yeomans’ calculations reinforce the existence of surface rubble. He found rotational forces on Eros are inadequate to overcome gravity and fling rock and dust into space. Learning Eros is mostly solid is important in case it or a similar asteroid ever gets on a collision course with Earth and nuclear bombs are used to deflect it, Zuber said. "Knowing what it’s made of and how tightly it is held together would aid significantly in planning how best to deflect it," she said. "You don’t want to break the thing into more pieces that would hit Earth." Soft landing approved NASA has approved ending NEAR’s mission next February by attempting a slow landing on Eros, said Mike Buckley, spokesman for John Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory, which runs the mission. The effort is a test for future spacecraft that would scoop samples from asteroids. The spacecraft was launched Feb. 17, 1996, flew past asteroid 253 Mathilde – a big rubble pile – in June 1997, then made an aborted effort to rendezvous with Eros in December 1998 before finally orbiting the asteroid last February 14.
Monday September 18, 2000 Scientists Eye Dangerous Asteroids By IAN PHILLIPS, Associated Press Writer LONDON (AP) - They may only strike every 100,000 years on average, but life-threatening asteroids could be heading Earth's way, and scientists said Monday they want a closer look. A panel set up this year by the British government to assess the risk of asteroids slamming into the planet called for an international program to build a powerful $22.5 million telescope in the southern hemisphere. ``The risk is very real - and very tiny - but with awful consequences, and we ought to be doing something about it,'' said Sir Crispin Tickell, Britain's former ambassador to the United Nations (news - web sites) and a member of the panel, which published its report on Monday. Although millions are already being spent trying to track Near Earth Objects, or NEOs, scientists acknowledge they're very much in the dark. Asteroids near Earth travel at between 10 and 20 miles per second, making them hard to detect. As a result, scientists watch their orbits to predict their expected course. According to the U.S. space agency NASA (news - web sites), at the beginning of 2000, only about half the estimated 500-to-1,000 near-Earth asteroids measuring half a mile across or larger - big enough to cause a global catastrophe - had been detected. The proposed 10-foot telescope would see further and wider and be able to pick up the faintest of glows, the panel said. Operated robotically, it would supplement the coverage of other telescopes in operation in the northern hemisphere. ``It's a question of giving ourselves a chance,'' said Robert Massey, an astronomer at Britain's Royal Observatory in Greenwich. ``We would be able to spot trouble 10 to 100 years away and could take steps accordingly.'' ``On the other hand, if it were a year away, probably the best we could do would be to duck,'' Massey said. Objects hitting the Earth have caused devastating damage over millions of years. One impact off the coast of what is now Mexico 65 million years ago is thought to have led to the extinction of the dinosaurs. Another impact in 1908 in Siberia knocked down trees with its shock waves over hundreds of square miles. The report listed nine objects that have come within two lunar distances of the Earth - about 497,120 miles - since 1991. In May 1996, an object 984 feet wide, called JA1, came as close as about 298,000 miles to the planet. It also called for further study into how to destroy a sizable object on a collision course with the planet. One possibility is a nuclear explosion by the side of an asteroid to divert it from its course. Recent Hollywood blockbusters ``Armageddon'' and ``Deep Impact'' have heightened public awareness about asteroid disasters. NASA has already earmarked more than $1 billion to gain a better scientific understanding of asteroids, which are rocky or metallic bodies hurtling through space mostly in a band between Jupiter and Mars. One British lawmaker, whose grandfather had an asteroid named after him to acknowledge his lifelong campaign to warn of impending disaster, welcomed Monday's proposal. ``We are playing Russian roulette with the future of the planet if we do nothing about it,'' said Lembit Opik. ``It would be a bit like Armageddon, but probably we would not want to send Bruce Willis.'' The panel is chaired by Dr. Harry Atkinson, formerly of the Science and Engineering Research Council and a past chairman of the European Space Agency's council.
Monday September 18, 2000 Report Calls for More Asteroid Protection By Patricia Reaney LONDON (Reuters) - It wiped out the dinosaurs 65 millions years ago and only happens every 100,000 years, but British scientists said Monday it is now time to take steps to protect Earth from a major asteroid strike. ``These impacts are of low frequency but high consequences,'' said Professor David Williams, a former president of the Royal Astronomical Society. ``The risk is very real, very tiny and we need to do something about it,'' he told a news conference. Williams and other members of the Task Force on Near-Earth Objects have urged Britain to spearhead an international effort to monitor comets and asteroids to reduce the risk of a devastating collision. In a report released Monday, the task force appointed by Science Minister Lord Sainsbury in January listed a series of recommendations to reduce the odds of a collision that could kill millions of people. ``No known asteroid or comet is likely to hit Earth in the next 50 years but there are many we do not know about,'' said Dr Harry Atkinson, who led the task force. The heart of the proposed early warning system is a new telescope to be built in the southern hemisphere to survey smaller objects than those usually observed by other telescopes. The telescope would cost an estimated $21 million and the entire project, which involves the use of other telescopes, space missions, monitoring and an asteroid defense center, could run into billions. Lord Sainsbury said: ``This is such an obviously international situation that it very much one where the international community should work together.'' The Bigger The Object The Smaller The Risk Near-Earth objects can range from pebble size to a something resembling a mountain. The bigger the object the smaller the risk there is of it colliding with Earth. Hollywood blockbusters ``Deep Impact'' and ``Armageddon'' have raised public awareness of the dangers of near-miss encounters. The British proposal wants to make sure it never happens. A collision with a large asteroid 0.6 miles in diameter could kill a quarter of the world's population. The warning system would allow scientists to monitor asteroids and if a collision is likely populations could be evacuated or the object could be deflected with a missile. The U.S. space agency NASA (news - web sites) is already monitoring the skies for objects greater than one kilometer in diameter. Congress wants NASA to detect at least 90 percent of all near-Earth objects that size within 10 years. The British proposal will search the skies for smaller but potentially dangerous objects. Scientific evidence suggests a huge asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs. Experts believe that up to 10,000 football-sized asteroids hit Earth every year but most go unnoticed.
Monday September 11, 2000 Protecting the Earth By Paul Hoversten Washington Bureau Chief, SPACE.com WASHINGTON -- It sounds like the stuff of science fiction. A robot spacecraft flies off to another planet, scoops up some soil and brings it back to Earth. Inside that scoop of dirt are living things that somehow escape, run amok and threaten our world. The scenario might sound outlandish until you consider this: For the first time since the 1960's Apollo moon landings, the federal government is making plans to protect Earth from any extraterrestrial life forms brought back -- on purpose -- by scientific space missions. Highest stakes The stakes could not be higher. Anything, from otherworldly contaminants to virulent microbes, are possible as NASA plans for missions that would retrieve bits of Mars and other cosmic bodies in the years ahead. The concern is that a harmful visitor from space might wind up endangering Earth's environment or its inhabitants. The first such sample-return mission is already on its way. Stardust, which was launched early last year, is chasing icy Comet Wild 2, which is half a billion miles (805 million kilometers) from Earth. The probe is designed to gather particles from the comet's tail and bring them to Earth in 2006. The particles will be microscopic -- all of them could easily fit inside the period at the end of this sentence -- and probably won't contain any traces of life. But other missions could fetch pieces of Mars or Jupiter's moon Europa, where life is more likely to be found. Other possible pickup points include Venus and the nucleus of a comet. In late 2002, the United States and Japan plan to launch a probe called Muses C to bring a chunk of an asteroid to Earth in 2007. Contain a strain As elated as scientists might be to find evidence of life in any of those places, they plan to be careful to keep it contained. No one, after all, wants an "Andromeda Strain" on their hands. "If there is a living organism in a sample returned from Mars, you don't want to let it out," said Margaret Race, a biologist at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California. "You don't have to look very far to come up with examples on Earth like the medfly, killer bee or gypsy moth to see that when you move a species from one place to another you can cause unintended problems, sometimes with significant impacts," she said. No longer do space scientists have to worry just about "forward" contamination, that is, exporting Earthly bacteria into the solar system. Now, there's the danger of "back" contamination -- importing space bacteria to us. A 1967 international agreement, to which the United States is a signatory, establishes a requirement that spacefaring nations avoid contamination in either direction. To that end, NASA is forming an internal "planetary-protection" committee of about 15 people to determine the care and handling of extraterrestrial samples. Assisting it will be another group with representatives from other federal agencies, including the departments of Health and Human Services; Agriculture; Interior; and Energy, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the National Institutes of Health. "Unconstrained experiments is not what we're about so we're going to be conservative," said John Rummel, NASA's chief planetary protection officer. The National Research Council (NRC) two years ago ranked various objects in the solar system on their potential for life and issued recommendations on how to handle material from them. That July 1998 report followed a study by the NRC a year early on recommendations for NASA's proposed Mars sample-return mission, which has since been put on hold. "The central concern…is the possibility that samples returned to Earth from small solar bodies might harbor living entities that could harm terrestrial living organisms or disrupt their ecosystems," the report said. Where life may live At the top of the NRC list -- where the chances for life are greatest and thus "strict containment and handling are warranted" -- are Mars, Jupiter's moons Europa and Ganymede and certain types of asteroids. Scientists doubt that meat-munching bugs or anything harmful to humans might exist in those places since there would be no such food source there. "Being a human pathogen on Mars right now is not a very good business to be in," Rummel said. "You might find something that gobbles hydrogen…but it wouldn't pose a threat to humans." At the bottom of the NRC list, where there is little or no chance for life and only basic containment would be needed, are places like the moon and interplanetary dust particles. Still, no one is taking chances. "Nobody is proposing that cometary samples be brought back willy-nilly or handed around to kids in the neighborhood," Rummel said. "These samples are going to be handled very carefully." Space dust and Martian fossils The Earth, in fact, is bombarded with dust and rocks from comets and other bodies. Each year about 40,000 tons of space material falls onto land or in the ocean, scientists estimate. At least some of it is believed to have survived atmospheric entry without severe heating. Already, there are bits of Mars on Earth in the form of 15 confirmed meteorites, most of them found in remote places like the Sahara Desert or Antarctica. Perhaps the most famous of the Martian meteorites -- known as ALH 84001 -- set off a stir worldwide when a team of NASA scientists announced in August 1996 that the potato-shaped rock appeared to contain the fossilized remains of ancient Martian bacteria. But that and other meteorites got to Earth the hard way -- on their own, blazing through the atmosphere. Some are displayed in museums, others are in the hands of private collectors and a few are being studied in laboratories around the world. By contrast, samples brought back by NASA's probes will arrive in their own sealed container at the end of a parachute to cushion the fall. Drop zones likely will be places like the Australian outback or Utah's Dugway Proving Ground, a military base where the U.S. Army tests biological and chemical defense systems. There, NASA scientists can retrieve and examine the space samples under secure conditions before carting them off to a special "receiving laboratory." No facility yet exists to handle extraterrestrial material. The closest thing to it -- a biological containment lab set up at the Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston for the Apollo moon missions -- was dismantled after the program ended in 1972. Locked down in a lab Most of the 843 pounds (382 kilograms) of moon rocks remain locked down in a special lab at the center, bathed in nitrogen gas to prevent contamination by Earth bacteria. The new lab could be at any of three NASA centers -- JSC, Ames Research Center in Mountain View and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California -- that are involved in the planning for missions to return space samples. Or NASA might decide to locate it elsewhere. Wherever the laboratory winds up, it probably will be modeled after lab standards at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, which has four protection levels for scientists studying infectious Earth organisms. Samples from Mars or Europa would be handled under strict conditions similar to the highest protection protocol -- Level 4. At that level, researchers wear pressurized spacesuits and handle samples of fatal viruses such as Ebola in special safety cabinets. "We have the technology for containment so that's not the issue," said Noreen Noonan, the EPA's assistant administrator for research and development who headed an advisory panel on planetary protection. "If you look at places like some government labs or military bases, they work with organisms that would scare the living daylights out of you if they ever got away." Risk management The bigger question, Noonan said, is "looking at risk from the standpoint of what are the likely scenarios? We have no evidence to suggest that things will actually come back on these missions…But the whole idea of how to manage risk is very poorly understood, and the scientific community has not covered itself in glory in trying to explain it." So far, NASA is trying to adhere to the guidelines set by the National Research Council. The agency's planetary-protection committee is to meet next month to adopt a charter and set the framework for decisions governing future missions. "This is one of those cases where the government's doing something right," said SETI's Race, who is not connected with NASA but is working with the agency on the issue. "They've been taking it very seriously," she said. "I'm comfortable in that if there were any reasons why we should not be [retrieving samples], then credible scientists should have stood up and said 'Hey, don't do this.' And they have not."
Friday September 8, 2000 Big Extinction Wiped Out Plants, Too, Study Finds By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The greatest mass extinction on Earth, which wiped out up to 85 percent of all animal life 250 million years ago, also killed off most of the plants, scientists said Friday. Evidence from South Africa's Karoo region suggests strongly that many species of plants disappeared at the end of the Permian period, along with oceans teeming with creatures. So many plants were lost that once-meandering rivers turned into straight-flowing steams laden with sediment stripped from land no longer held in place by roots, the team at the University of Washington and the South African Museum found. Dave Montgomery, a geologist at the University of Washington who worked on the study, said the finding did not explain what caused the huge extinction. ``Maybe the same thing killed both (animals and plants) at the same time,'' he said in a telephone interview. ``With what we have we can't say. But it does suggest that it was global and it was big.'' Before the Permian extinction, the Earth's seas were filled with odd and fantastic life, from the first fish to nautilus-like mollusks called ammonites. Trilobites, once found almost everywhere, disappeared. There were 10,000 different species of the arthropods, which could roll up like pill bugs. Fossil evidence suggests at least 85 percent of all marine species and 70 percent of the land animal species, mostly reptiles and amphibians, perished in less than 1 million years -- very quickly by geological standards. So many creatures died that fungi dominated the land for a short time, according to some studies. Theories as to what could cause such devastation include an asteroid impact -- now accepted as the probable cause of the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Scientists also believe radiation from a supernova, excessive volcanic activity, a huge ``burp'' of trapped gases from beneath the ocean or perhaps global warming may have caused the extinctions. Montgomery and colleagues were looking for physical evidence of what may have happened in the Karoo Basin, a relatively untouched wasteland that is prized as a kind of living laboratory for paleontologists. They found evidence of ancient riverbeds dating to the time of the extinction 250 million years ago. These riverbeds took a form known as braided streams, which run straight and fast and branch out for short distances before merging back to the primary stream. These are rarely found today. Most rivers meander, making long, swooping curves. And meandering rivers had developed before the Permian extinction, as well. Writing in Friday's issue of the journal Science, the researchers said the conclusion is clear. Whatever caused the Permian extinction was major. ``That change triggered changes in vegetation that were catastrophic and global and those may have triggered basic and catastrophic changes in the basic morphology of rivers,'' Montgomery said. ``It is very hard to get a meandering river to go into a braided river. It really suggests that it was biggie.'' Such changes are seen today in places where volcanoes have killed all the vegetation on land. ``It is the kind of change that we are seeing at Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines, in response to the eruption there,'' Montgomery said. ``A massive amount of sediment is being dumped into the rivers there. Narrow, steeper mountain rivers are being turned into braided channels.'' The finding could also help explain what other scientists have found -- that huge amounts of carbon showed up at the bottom of the seas at the time of the extinction. Carbon is found in all life forms. ``All that dead stuff had to go somewhere,'' Montgomery said.
RELATIVE POSITIONS OF ASTEROIDS NEAR EARTH
NOTE: I picked up this paper from a stack I was saving because it said we were going to get hit by a comet NASA was hiding from us in October. I didn't realize this paper was two years old. Guess what! Here we are again! Again being threatened by comets in October! What is is about October? Here are two pics from the other day. From: ORBIT FRONTPAGE From: ORBIT FRONTPAGE Excerpted from Weekly World News by George Smith August 28, 1998 NASA ON TOP SECRET RED ALERT - DOOMSDAY COMET SPEEDING TOWARD EARTH: ESTIMATED COLLISION DATE: OCT. 29, 1998 PARIS: A massive comet as big as Europe is speeding toward earth and unless we can find some way to stop it, 3 billion people will die when the giant space rock hits - possibly as early as October! That's the word from a team of frantic scientists who've secretly met wtih leaders of the world's major powers at least six times since America's Hubble space Telescope first photographed the run-away comet in April (1998) In their emotion charged and often grim meetings here, scientists have urged leaders of the United States, Russia, England, France, Germany, Japan and China to find the use of nuclear weapons to attempt to vaporize the comet while it is safely out in space - though most experts concede that this plan has little, if any chance of success. "The chilling fact is, most scientists now agree that any attempt to shot a comet or an asteroid out of the sky, or even to alter its course, with nuclear weapons is a virtual impossibility" insisted famed astronomer Dr. Robert Cremson, one of nine scientists who've been busy spurring the world's political leaders to action. "But it's also a fact that at this point, the use of nuclear weapons is the only plan anyone has come up with that has any chance at all of ending this threat to life as we know it." Dr. Cremson said President Clinton, who has slipped out of Washington to attend at least three of the secret Paris conferences, is so concerned about the impending disaster that he has authorized the expenditure of the more than $4 billion that NASA and the Pentagon say they'll need to modify land-based missiles for an assault on the killer comet. "Mr. Clinton is gravely concerned, as are all the leaders who met in Paris." the scientists said. "We may have our political and ideological differences among nations here on Earth, but now that the human race is threatened with extinction, the worlds leaders seem willing to set aside these differences in an attempt to save the lives of every man, woman, and child on the planet. "The trouble is, right now we simply don't have a clue what do do next." But experts say unless we find some way to stop it, there is a 93 percent chance that the gigantic chunk of ice, rock and space debris will slam into Earth at a mind-boggling 141,000 m.p.h. on or around October 29. "At that point, one of two things could happen," Dr. Cremson said. "In the first scenario, the impact would smash earth to bits, sending fragments hurtling into space and killing us all, Or it's possible Earth would remain intact. But in that case, the collision would no doubt kick millions of tons of dirt and debris into the atmosphere, veiling the sun and plunging us into a temporary but devastating deep-freeze - much like the one believed to have wiped out the dinosaurs after a comet collided with earth 65 million years ago. "Its likely, that to us as human beings, it won't much matter which scenario takes place, however - because it's very likely that either way, the human race will cease to exist." It was Dr. Cremson, a world -renowned astronomer with close ties to NASA, who first discovered the so-called Cremson Comet while examining Hubble photographs last spring. After identifying a tiny point of light appearing on one of the photos as a comet, the scientist began to monitor its speed and trajectory with an earthbound telescope and determined that it was on a collision course with earth. Dr. cremson immediately alerted NASA and fellow astronomers around the world, who persuaded world leaders to gather for the series of "red-alert" meetings that began here in May. "Were really struggling because no one knows what we can do to ward off this comet," Dr. Cremson said, "But we will do something, that's for certain. "We will do something because we must do something." Comet Hysteria and the Millennium
2001PM9 - impactor table [ 2001PM9 home page Object: 2001PM9 date MJD sigma sigimp dist +/- width stretch p_RE YYYY/MM (RE) (RE) AU/sig -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2005/06 53525.558 -0.9900 2.4080 51.81 +/-21.100 0.1051 0.0000016776 2007/06 54255.522 -2.5200 0.8779 18.42 +/-19.847 0.1465 0.0000012792 2009/06 54985.871 -2.5600 0.5237 11.33 +/-19.730 3.2268 0.0000000584 2032/05 63386.800 -2.5000 1.2742 27.13 +/-20.511 142.6049 0.0000000013 2038/05 65578.297 -2.5300 1.3716 28.78 +/-20.256 373.4345 0.0000000005 2038/06 65578.322 -2.4900 1.4884 31.44 +/-20.450 87.7267 0.0000000021 2040/05 66308.922 -2.4850 1.8155 38.22 +/-20.500 74.5984 0.0000000024 2042/05 67039.454 -2.4800 1.9329 40.53 +/-20.453 63.4053 0.0000000029 2044/05 67769.889 -2.4750 1.6987 35.71 +/-20.432 50.2606 0.0000000036 2046/06 68500.414 -2.4700 1.7801 37.68 +/-20.604 40.2054 0.0000000045 2048/05 69231.031 -2.4600 2.3309 48.28 +/-20.283 32.0935 0.0000000057 2050/06 69961.395 -2.4550 1.8379 38.58 +/-20.447 25.1484 0.0000000072 2051/05 70326.580 -2.5050 1.6885 36.16 +/-20.825 328.6767 0.0000000005 2052/06 70691.876 -2.5350 1.8821 38.05 +/-19.685 451.9460 0.0000000004 2052/05 70692.001 -2.4399 2.2503 46.94 +/-20.416 20.5569 0.0000000089 2054/06 71422.546 -2.4300 2.3884 49.80 +/-20.432 16.4697 0.0000000111 2056/06 72152.979 -2.4150 2.1059 44.08 +/-20.458 11.9561 0.0000000152 2058/06 72883.528 -2.3900 2.2948 48.30 +/-20.612 8.2800 0.0000000218 2060/06 73614.114 -2.3600 2.7454 56.85 +/-20.344 5.1553 0.0000000355 2062/04 74344.405 -2.5100 2.0571 44.76 +/-21.272 514.4338 0.0000000003 2062/06 74344.530 -2.3050 2.3846 50.27 +/-20.660 2.6494 0.0000000680 2063/05 74709.701 -2.5200 2.2797 44.28 +/-18.986 4326.032 0.0000000000 2063/04 74709.643 -2.4950 2.0247 42.82 +/-20.656 198.0037 0.0000000009 2064/06 75075.047 -2.3050 2.6405 54.70 +/-20.338 56.6579 0.0000000032 2067/05 76170.796 -2.5250 2.5060 50.33 +/-19.684 1074.343 0.0000000002 2074/06 78727.437 -2.5050 2.3284 49.67 +/-20.903 452.7894 0.0000000004 2075/06 79092.726 -2.4850 2.3653 49.99 +/-20.710 142.3082 0.0000000013 2076/05 79457.902 -2.5400 2.1117 43.54 +/-20.144 340.8524 0.0000000005 2079/06 80553.750 -2.4800 2.4464 51.44 +/-20.619 98.4295 0.0000000018 Based on 31 optical observations (of which there are 1 rejected outliers) from 11/8/2001 to 16/8/2001. Asteroids/Comets New and VERY DANGEROUS Impactor Discovered Tom Canada -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sorry to be the one to break this news, but a new Earth Impactor Asteroid has just been announced by NEODys, and this one... 1) Is very big 2) Is on the same order of magnitude of impact probability as 2001AV43 3) Will possibily impact the Earth in the very near future! Let me introduce you to Asteroid 2001PM9. a) Discovered on August 11, 2001 and observed up until August 16th. Its orbit was computer and posted (8-17-01) b) It's Absolute Magnitude suggests it is anywhere from 530m to 1.2km in diameter... that's up to nearly 3/4 of a mile in diameter! c) It will make a relatively close pass to within .089AU on May 10, 2003. The first possible impact date calculated and the one with the highest probability of occurring is set for June 17, 2005. If it misses Earth on that pass there are another 28 possible impact dates calculated between 2005 and 2079. Dear Readers, following are some facts that ought to set you right back in your chair, grow you some some grey hairs - or cause a certain amount of lost sleep. If 2001PM9 impacts the Earth... 1. It will be the kind of impact event that only happens once every 25,000 to 500,000 years. 2. It will impact with a force of somewhere between 100,000 to 800,000 Megatons 3. It will be somewhere between a "Large Sub-Global Event" to a "Nominal Global Effect Threshold" Event. 4. It is estimated that an impact of this order would result in the loss of anywhere between 500,000 and 1.5 Billion lives (depending on exactly where it hit). Ladies and Gentlemen, if and when 2001PM9 impacts the Earth... a) If it hits in the Ocean tsunamis could reach "global scale". b) If it hits land it could completely destroy an area the size of California c) Could raise enough dust to affect the climate and freeze crops. d) Create a crater up to 30 km in diameter (18 miles around). e) Cause ozone layer destruction on a global scale. If you worried a little about 1998OX4 and 2001AV43...be very concerned about this one. We really need to push the button on this one (get the word out and get a lot more information). (Will be updated when available)
Date: 8/24/2001 6:40:12 AM Pacific Daylight Time From: skywatcher22@hotmail.com (Bill Hamilton) A newly discovered asteroid whose orbit around the Sun had only been tentatively investigated was rumored last weekend to be on a collision course with Earth. As with similar cases in recent years, further scientific observations showed the asteroid, called 2001 PM9, poses no threat. But before these additional observations could be made, the initial data collected on the space rock was released on a public Web site called NEODyS, which is run by scientists who hunt for and study potentially hazardous asteroids. The site is intended to inform other astronomers of newly found asteroids, in part so that additional observations can be made. However, when 2001 PM9 was announced on NEODyS (Near Earth Objects Dynamic Site) on Friday, Aug. 17, it included odds of a possible impact in 2005 and 2007 that were better than 1-in-a-million. Slim, but not none. By early this week, the odds had been revised to none. Yet over the weekend, a handful of other Web sites disseminated the earlier information, some adding personal fears to their reports. On a Web site called The Hot Sheets, a visitor posted details of the asteroid that included this warning: "Dear Readers, following are some facts that ought to set you right back in your chair, grow you some grey hairs -- or cause a certain amount of lost sleep." Not the first time While not widely published in the popular press, the case of 2001 PM9 mirrors other instances in which the public was warned of possible Earth impacts that later turned out to be no threat at all. The first and most infamous was asteroid 1997 XF11, which in 1998 was said to be on a course that might hit the planet in 2040. Most major news organizations reported the threat, which scientists later withdrew. The scenario was repeated in 1999, when asteroid 1999 AN10 was said to have a small chance to hit Earth in 2039. The release of that data, and subsequent publication by some media outlets, was criticized by researchers who still had a 1997 XF11 hangover and worried that their credibility was being eroded. NEODyS was created by a group of researchers at the University of Pisa in Italy -- the same researchers who published the initial data about 1999 AN10. One goal was to provide better communication between scientists regarding asteroids, so that asteroid scares could be avoided. But anyone can access the information, and other NEO (Near Earth Object) organizations also reported the initial 2001 PM9 data. The first reports of 2001 PM9 were disseminated by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and another research group called Spaceguard Foundation. However, Donald Yeomans at JPL said his organization did nothing wrong. Though data on 2001 PM9 first appeared on JPL's Potentially Hazardous Asteroid list on Aug. 13, Yeomans said it was a "routine posting of orbital data and certainly not an announcement of any type of threat." No impact probabilities were listed on the JPL site, he said. "At no time did JPL formally or informally release any announcement about asteroid 2001 PM9," Yeomans said. "Our activities were restricted to requesting new data, soliciting archival data and working to compute updated orbits so the results could show, as quickly as possible, that this object was not a threat. We were rather proud that these activities took place so rapidly that by last Friday, the computations showed no real threat. That is exactly how things are supposed to work." Floundering community of researchers Brian Marsden is director of the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center, which serves as the ultimate clearinghouse for data and names of asteroids and other small objects in the solar system. Marsden said scientists' ability to properly deal with early asteroid data has not improved since 1998, and the problem stems from how information is communicated. "This is not to say that NEODyS, or any other professionals working in the area, is doing bad science," Marsden said in comments today on a newsletter called CCNet, which provides a forum for discussing asteroid hazards. "It is very clear, however, that our community continues to flounder in the way such information is made public." Marsden was particularly critical of the fact that after the risk was found to be nil, a "risk page" about the asteroid was removed from the NEODyS site, rather than being updated to reflect the change. "Illogical though it may seem to us, some people tend to assume that such removal means that the object has in fact become more dangerous, not less, and that the astronomers are involved in a cover-up," Marsden said. "A simple posting to confirm that the object is no longer dangerous would work wonders." Benny Peiser, a researcher at Liverpool John Moores University and the moderator of CCNet, said, "I wonder how many more asteroid scares it will take before the NEO community will heed the recurring calls for adjustment and make a determined effort to resolve this thorny issue." Efforts have been made. In 1999, the NEO community developed the Torino scale, a hazard index structured something like the Richter Scale for earthquake magnitude. The Torino scale was intended to improve definitions and communications between scientists, as well as their ability to communicate potential threats to the press and the public. But so far the Torino scale has been nearly nonexistent as far as the public is concerned. The threat According to scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, there are currently 315 known "potentially hazardous asteroids," or PHAs. Each appears to be on a course that will one day bring it close to Earth's orbit, but scientists stress that none of them are known to be on a collision course with the planet. Many other asteroids that might be listed as PHAs are thought to be out there but not yet found. An asteroid capable of global disaster would have to be more than a quarter-mile wide, researchers say. Asteroids that large strike Earth only once every 1,000 centuries on average, according to NASA officials. Other estimates range widely, reflecting the fact that researchers don't know how many asteroids are out there, let alone how many might eventually cross the path of Earth. Smaller asteroids that are believed to strike Earth every 1,000 to 10,000 years could destroy a city or cause devastating tsunamis. Scientists have in recent years called on governments to begin making plans for how to defend the planet against such impacts. Bill Hamilton Executive Director Skywatch International, Inc. websites: http://home.earthlink.net/~skywatcher22 http://home.earthlink.net/~skywatcher12 http://home.earthlink.net/~xplorerx http://home.earthlink.net/~xplorerx2
If the Asteroid Misses Earth, it could hit Mars

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