Giant asteroid set to narrowly miss Earth

Carne

A giant asteroid will only just miss earth later this year, according to NASA. The huge rock, dubbed YU55, will pass within 201,700 miles of our planet in November. If it crashes into earth the impact would be equivalent to 65,000 atomic bombs, while the crater would be six miles wide and 2,000 ft deep.

The asteroid, which weighs 55 million tons and is 1,300ft wide, will be the largest ever object to get so close to our planet. It orbits the sun every 14 months.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/giant-asteroid-set-to-narrowly-miss-earth.html

Rubecula

Not sure about that last sentence, but the largest in modern times may be true.

ihavequestions

Wow! Pity I'll be living in London then so the light pollution will make it impossible to spot.

Kidchameleon

Why cant we put a man/woman on it if its gonna be so close? Why wasn't a mission to this thing in development?

Ash.J.Williams

Kidchameleon wrote: »

Why cant we put a man/woman on it if its gonna be so close? Why wasn't a mission to this thing in development?

A crack team of miners?

Triangla

Kidchameleon wrote: »

Why cant we put a man/woman on it if its gonna be so close? Why wasn't a mission to this thing in development?

Can we choose the man/woman?

I can think of a few candidates.

Kidchameleon

Seems they have been planing something after all...

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/asteroid20110502.html

Kidchameleon

Kidchameleon wrote: »

Why cant we put a man/woman on it if its gonna be so close? Why wasn't a mission to this thing in development?

Because that'd be ridiculously dangerous. Can you imagine trying to land a craft on an unstable piece of rock and ice only 1300 feet across? Landing and then returning from it would be incredibly dangerous, if not impossible. There wouldn't be much benefit, if any at all, from landing a human on it, anyway.

Monty Burnz

-JammyDodger- wrote: »

Because that'd be ridiculously dangerous. Can you imagine trying to land a craft on an unstable piece of rock and ice only 1300 feet across? Landing and then returning from it would be incredibly dangerous, if not impossible. There wouldn't be much benefit, if any at all, from landing a human on it, anyway.

Landing on it and taking off...disturb it's orbit juuuuuust a little bit....next time maybe it will be a lot closer. :eek:

Rhys Essien

Wrong.They are planning an asteroid mission.

http://www.space.com/8240-nasa-asteroid-mission-save-planet.html


By 2025, we expect new spacecraft designed for long journeys to allow us to begin the first-ever crewed missions beyond the moon into deep space," Obama said. "We'll start we?ll start by sending astronauts to an asteroid for the first time in history."

In a panel discussion that followed President Obama's Thursday space vision speech, astrophysicist John Grunsfeld ? a former NASA astronaut who flew on five shuttle missions ? suggested sending humans to purposely move an asteroid, to nudge the space rock to change its trajectory. Such a feat, he said, would show that humanity could deflect a space rock if one threatened to crash into the planet.

shedweller

I say we go to it and explore. If only we could stop pouring money down a black hole first....:mad:
Anyway, heres a wiki page on the asteroid:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_YU55

Overature

This near Earth asteroid collison is brought to you by: Planet Express