:sigh: first 'apocalypse' of 2013 closing in.

[Robert Comsol]

BillJ wrote:

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Morning news said it had nothing to do with the one passing us later on today. Or did I just misread your post?

That's what the news are saying and the scientists interviewed claim it's a collossal coincidence of astronomic proportions (I really have to make a video with footage of Bob Gunton playing Captain Benjamin Maxwell and then add his dialogue from "The Shawshank Redemption": "Lord, it's a miracle!").

Now, if meteroid blasts in our atmosphere like the one from today would be a common thing we'd hear about several times a year, I'd agree there is no connection.

However, given the close pass of Asteroid 2012 DA 14 tonight, I find myself unable not to see a connection which our current science is unable to explain.

Worse, the stupid movie "Armageddon" from 1998 claimed that the asteroid would be pushing meteroid debris ahead of it. I'm not aware whether Bruckheimer consulted with specialists prior to making this movie, but if he did, I'd like to hear what these specialists did say.

Bob

[B.J.]

Massive coincidence. This one was a few meters in diameter, weighing about 10 tons, and it's likely that it wasn't even being tracked. It's *very difficult* to track these things, let alone find them in the first place.

You do know that tons (seen figures of 100 tons and up to 10000 tons) of material fall to Earth every day, right? Most of that burns up harmlessly. And strikes like these happen on average every 5 years. So go ahead and take off the tin-foil hat, this isn't a conspiracy to keep things from us.

[BillJ]

B.J. wrote:

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Massive coincidence. This one was a few meters in diameter, weighing about 10 tons, and it's likely that it wasn't even being tracked. It's *very difficult* to track these things, let alone find them in the first place.

You do know that tons (seen figures of 100 tons and up to 10000 tons) of material fall to Earth every day, right? Most of that burns up harmlessly. And strikes like these happen on average every 5 years. So go ahead and take off the tin-foil hat, this isn't a conspiracy to keep things from us.

But conspiracies are fun!

[TheGodBen]

Robert Comsol wrote:

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However, given the close pass of Asteroid 2012 DA 14 tonight, I find myself unable not to see a connection which our current science is unable to explain.

2012 DA14 is approaching Earth from the south while the meteor that hit Russia today approached from the direction of the sun and hit the northern hemisphere. Adding to that, they're over 12 hours apart, which is tens of thousands of kilometres in astronomical terms. The two objects were on considerably different orbits.

EDIT: Here's a graph that demonstrates the difference in their approaches.

Worse, the stupid movie "Armageddon" from 1998 claimed that the asteroid would be pushing meteroid debris ahead of it.

When the tsunami hit Japan in 2011 and brought unprecedented destruction, did you worry that the neutrinos had mutated?

[Rhubarbodendron]

thanks. It coming from the direction of the sun would explain why it wasn't detected earlier (plus everyone focussing on the close big one, of course).

Had a similar meteorite hit the US only 6 years ago, GWB would have declared the sun part of the axis of evil and have it blown up by a drone squad.


No chance of seeing the asteroid transit from my place tonight We have a fog so thick that any object going slower than warp 5 would get stuck in it.

[RJDiogenes]

The difference in timing is no big deal. Meteor showers always take place over a period of hours, and it's not unreasonable that an asteroid would be surrounded by a cloud of debris. The angle of the approach makes it very unlikely that the two events are related (and the volume of rocks that hit the Earth every day-- mostly impacting in the ocean or uninhabited areas-- makes it less of a coincidence than it might seem), but a few thousand miles and a couple of degrees are really chicken feed on the interplanetary scale, so it's within the realm of possibility that they are related. Fragments of the meteor will be available for study, so, depending on how much is known about the asteroid, they may be able to determine definitively if there is a relationship.

[Rhubarbodendron]

If there weren't that many injured, it would almost be funny how the dangerousely close Asteroid was harmless and some unknown meteorite started a bonsai-apocalypse of its own.

[Locutus of Bored]

Robert Comsol wrote:

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Worse, the stupid movie "Armageddon" from 1998 claimed that the asteroid would be pushing meteroid debris ahead of it. I'm not aware whether Bruckheimer consulted with specialists prior to making this movie, but if he did, I'd like to hear what these specialists did say.

Of course he consulted with specialists. He hired a team made up of the world's best oil drillers to be his technical advisers on how to deal with asteroids.