Help...Again.

Help...Again.

Noemi (guest) 29 Jun 2010 00:05

Hello I'm usually here, well at the moment I feel very nervous since ten minutes ago I heard in some Spanish news that their are lots of asteroids that are coming towards the earth and that their is a chance it could hit it and cause destruction…I can't deny to say that I'm ok because I'm not I'm really panicking so i decided to come here and calm down. Is this true? Also i hate being so skeptical but after I saw Pandora's threat I got more worry, however, I do understand that the choice to believe is on me, but how can I calm down after hearing that on the news?

Re: Help...Again.

Astrogeek 29 Jun 2010 00:31

I don't suppose they were at all specific in this report?

The only asteroid with a large enough chance of striking the earth that we know about is Apophis. Check out the asteroids page for a discussion of that asteroid and others. Also check out out the Don Yeomans page.

Don is part of the NEO (Near Earth Asteroid) search. It is his job to find anything heading our way that is big enough to cause significant damage. He wrote this blog entry at the JPL blog.

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"Do you ever think about things you do think about?" - Henry Drummond to Matthew Harrison Brady in Inherit the Wind

Re: Help...Again.

TheGreatJuju 29 Jun 2010 01:55

I heard in some Spanish news that their are lots of asteroids that are coming towards the earth

The next known near-earth asteroid encounter is 26 years out, 99942 Apophis, and even that has only a very tiny chance of colliding with Earth — currently 1 in 135,000 or 0.000740000%. You're thousands of times more likely to be hit by a bus driven by Jesus. Even if we take the worst-case scenario and say this thing hits our planet, it isn't large enough to cause a global apocalypse.

As for the Spanish newscast, it would be great if you could provide a link or something, but the claim that "lots of asteroids" are headed our way is simply not substantiated by any known facts.

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"They tell you, but do you believe it? If so, why?"

http://www.undeadrufus.com

Last edited on 29 Jun 2010 01:55 by TheGreatJuju Show more