Late News - Asteriod Misses Earth!

mike65

Whoops! I was a bit slow on this -

http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/science/asteroid-toutatis-36974.html

A three-mile-wide hunk of space rock known by the unremarkable name Asteroid 4179 Toutatis will pass within one million miles of Earth's surface Wednesday, affecting the planet not one whit, but presenting an uncomfortable reminder of how ill-prepared humanity remains to deal with potentially catastrophic threats from errant heavenly bodies.

Toutatis is named after a Celtic-Gallic god who appears in a popular French comic-book series called "Aventures d'Asterix." It tours the local planetary neighborhood in a lazy, four-year orbit that will take it out toward the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, then back inside Earth's path around the sun.

During its latest close encounter, Toutatis will not be visible except through a telescope and its influence on the Earth will be so small it will not affect air currents in the atmosphere let alone the tides. It actually is two separate pieces of roundish rock that have been bonded together, one quite a bit bigger than the other, making it look like a malformed baking potato.

Potential Hazard

The latest Toutatis flyby will be at roughly four times the distance from Earth to the moon -- about 960,000 miles -- which is closer than it has come since at least the 12th century. Though astronomers estimate it will not pass this closely again for more than 550 years, they cannot be sure because Toutatis travels along such an erratic orbit. For that reason, it is classified as a "potentially hazardous" object.

No other known asteroids of its size or larger are expected to come as close as Toutatis during the 21st century, and there is no chance any known object will collide with Earth for at least five more centuries.

It missed so we're okay...for now.

Mike..

Saruman

wow that was close.. phew... almost was toast there and did not know it.