Monday, April 18, 2005

Earth’s gravity may lure deadly asteroid

Times Online (article)

Thought you could rest easy tonight?


A HUGE asteroid which is on a course to miss the Earth by a whisker in 2029 could go round its orbit again and score a direct hit a few years later.
Astronomers have calculated that the 1,000ft-wide asteroid called 2004 MN4 will pass by the Earth at a distance of between 15,000 and 25,000 miles — about a tenth of the distance between the Earth and the Moon and close enough to be seen with the naked eye.
Although they are sure that it will miss us, they are worried about the disturbance that such a close pass will give to the asteroid’s orbit. It might put 2004 MN4 on course for a collision in 2034 or a year or two later.


I'm sure we will get everything figured out by then, but it is interesting to see that this might be a problem in the near future.
(p.s. we might not want to mess up Earth orbit with jump day...)

2 comments:

nettymus said...

Or maybe Jump day is the only thing that could save us!

Ookami Snow said...

That's crazy enough... it just might work... ^_^