h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I need to go down the shops ... can you tell me if I need to get some extra stuff in, for the next asteroid, which is going to plummet into the earth, causing the next ice age?

I remember watching a documentary - there was one coming called 1956?

http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/neo_ca?type=NEO&hmax=all&sort=date&sdir=ASC&tlim=recent_future&dmax=0.1AU&max_rows=20&action=Display+Table&show=1

http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/neo_ca?type=PHA;hmax=all;tlim=future;dmax=5LD;max_rows=20;action=Display%20Table;show=1&sort=dist_min&sdir=ASC

The PHA (Potentially Hazardous Asteroid) predicted to pass Earth with the lowest nominal (most likely) miss distance will do so at about 9.45pm Universal Time on April 13th 2029. The minimum miss distance predicted for it is 0.09 Lunar Distances - a little under 35,000km.

The smallest minimum miss distance I could find is due on Aug 24th 2130, and could at worst (according to their calculations) miss us by 115km.

Oh, by the way - April 13th 2029 is

a) a Friday
b) Christopher Hitchens' 80th Birthday.

>could at worst (according to their calculations) miss us by 115km.<

That's an extraordinarily precise definition of the word "miss".

But don't worry!

NASA plan to have some robot-nukes to ward it off.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/08/06/nasa_nuke_bot_vs_doom_boulder/

Thanks everyone --- I can sleep better now, knowing that I have exactly 23 Years and 18 days left ... I can eat salt, drink, smoke, have a good time ... the end of the world is 24th August 2130 (nigh).

Umm, don't you mean 123 years left? I'd go easy on the booze and fags for a while yet

Robot nukes...that'll help?

turvy

'b) Christopher Hitchens' 80th Birthday.'

Wow. The irony would be, er, well, it would be short lived.

Systematic extermination of all theism. It's what he probably will be going to would have wanted.

"Robot nukes...that'll help?"
Of course, have you no convidence in NASA to be able to aim several nukes at a small (comparatively) object several million miles away and hit it?

As long as they're under the drink-detonate limit.

They'd probably knock and asteroid that was going to miss on a direct collision course...

Not being religious, Chris³, but shouldn't you (hedging all your bets) spell his name with a capital letter (re: He (God)) Only another 23 years or so.

The he I was referring to there was Chris Hitchens, and though I'm sure he's one hell of an arrogant bastard, I think he'd probably bash his head against a brick wall on the suggestion that he was a God...

I recall there was once some speculation about a UFO being hidden behind a comet.

Eminent scholars at the Bright Future Institute, based in Iran, claim that the man they call prophet Jesus will be returning to Earth pretty soon in order to point the way to the mysterious Hidden Imam.

Could the Bright Future messenger be coming on the next near-miss asteroid do you think?
Anyway, how do we know it's an asteroid? Are there pictures of it?

Maybe it's a giant space vehicle in disguise? An invasion of aliens?
Aaaaargh!

Serious sort of question now...

So, Apophis is not going to hit us in 2029 or in the foreseeable future, but just might in a few hundred years or so...

One of the only practical ways of dealing with such an asteroid I've seen discussed would be to gently nudge it off course a long time in advance... The idea being that if you knew it was going to hit the earth with enough notice then you'd be able to apply reasonably small forces to the asteroid to deflect its course enough to make it miss the earth...

Now, my question is, why don't we start playing snooker with the things now?

What's to stop us pro-actively deflecting any asteroid that _might_ come into contact with the earth into the sun?

My guess is the prospect that we might ensure that it *will* - but a practice session on a nowhere-near-Earth asteroid was done a while back.

I'd agree with the risk if the aim were simply to deflect a Near Earth Object away from us into another orbit - the risk of it coming back and biting us would be enough to scare anyone... However, there's a ruddy enormous gravity well in the centre of our solar system, so if you limit yourself to attempting to deflect those asteroids going 'downhill' (i.e.: heading inwards towards the sun, once you nudge it vaguely in the direction of the sun, making sure its not going to hit, or get anywhere near, either of the two intervening planets, it's not likely to escape.