Christian Message Boards: Near Earth Astroid (Thread name changed ;o)

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Posted by SoftTouch (Member # 2316) on :

http://www.newscientist.com/news/print.jsp?id=ns99994793

Closest asteroid to pass Earth approaches

12:27 18 March 04

NewScientist.com news service

An asteroid the size of a small office building will make the closest approach ever recorded to the Earth on Thursday evening
Discovered just two days ago by an automated telescope scanning the sky for near-Earth objects, asteroid 2004 FH will miss the planet by a mere 40,000 kilometres, just over a tenth of the distance to the Moon.

The previous record was set 27 September 2003, when 10-metre asteroid 2003 SQ222 missed the earth by about twice that distance. However, that object came from inside the Earth's orbit, so its close approach was not recorded until it had passed the Earth.

Asteroid 2004 FH was spotted on Tuesday morning, 16 March, by the MIT Lincoln Laboratory's LINEAR camera, as it approached from outside the Earth's orbit. At its closest, 2004 FH will have a brightness of magnitude 10 - invisible to the unaided eye, but bright enough to see in amateur telescopes.

Megaton of energy

At roughly 30 metres in size, 2004 FH is too small to cause widespread damage should it hit the Earth. It would be more likely explode in the air, releasing about a megaton of energy. However, that energy should dissipate harmlessly if the blast is high enough above the surface.
Orbital calculations by Gareth Williams of the Minor Planet Center at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Massachusetts, US, show 2004 FH spends most of its time between the Earth and Mercury, orbiting the sun every 270 days.

A Minor Planet Circular shows 2004 FH passing about 60,000 kilometres from the centre of the earth in the late evening of 18 March. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Near-Earth Objects web site puts the minimum distance at 45,000 kilometres from the Earth's centre.

Posted by helpforhomeschoolers (Member # 15) on :

Well this is interesting but I didnt get where we got the "Wormwood" What did I miss?

Posted by SoftTouch (Member # 2316) on :

Revelation 8

10The third angel sounded his trumpet, and a great star, blazing like a torch, fell from the sky on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water-- 11the name of the star is Wormwood.[1] A third of the waters turned bitter, and many people died from the waters that had become bitter.

OK… I goofed, I was thinking of this verse from Revelation 8:

8The second angel sounded his trumpet, and something like a huge mountain, all ablaze, was thrown into the sea. A third of the sea turned into blood, 9a third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed.

Did anyone read about the Basketball sized Hail that's been falling in Spain? [Wink]

Posted by SoftTouch (Member # 2316) on :

UPDATE: Well, 5:08pm has come and gone and I haven't heard of anything splashing down in the Atlantic so... whew LOL

http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,114537,00.html

Asteroid to Pass Close to Earth

Thursday, March 18, 2004

Associated Press

SAN DIEGO, California — As far as flying space rocks go, it's as close an encounter as mankind has ever had.

A 100-foot diameter asteroid will pass within 26,500 miles of Earth on Thursday evening, the closest-ever brush on record by a space rock, NASA astronomers said.

The asteroid's close flyby, first spied late Monday, poses no risk, National Aeronautics and Space Administration astronomers stressed.

"It's a guaranteed miss," astronomer Paul Chodas, of the near-Earth object office at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (search), said Wednesday.

The asteroid, 2004 FH (search), was expected to make its closest approach at 5:08 p.m. EST, streaking over the southern Atlantic Ocean. It should be visible through binoculars to stargazers across the southern hemisphere, as well as throughout Asia and Europe, said astronomer Steve Chesley, also of JPL.

Professional astronomers around the globe scrambled Wednesday to prepare for the flyby, which could provide an unprecedented chance to get a close look at the asteroid, he added. The asteroid will pass within the moon's orbit.

Similarly sized asteroids are believed to come as close to Earth on average once every two years, but have always escaped detection.

"The important thing is not that it's happening, but that we detected it," Chesley said.

Astronomers found the asteroid late Monday during a routine survey carried out with a pair of telescopes in New Mexico funded by the NASA. Follow-up observations on Tuesday allowed them to pinpoint its orbit.

"It immediately became clear it would pass very close by the Earth," Chesley said.

Astronomers have not ruled out that the asteroid and our planet could meet again sometime in the future. If the two were to collide, the asteroid likely would disintegrate in the atmosphere, Chesley said.

Posted by LiteralD (Member # 2922) on :

Ya you can say that again. funny enough I just finished an intense study of the book of revelation, and I had been wondering, why exactly in the past year scientist are becoming more and more interested with the "end time" comet hitting earth, top scientists around north american actually got together to work on programs to solve the problems of these comets hitting the earth.

On another note in class the other day an engineering teacher of mine who has little or no belief in God said that he had a feeling there was going to be a flood of biblical size in our near future, which makes me wonder is God using non-christians to get his warning or messages out? or am I just reading to far into this?