I know, right? I’m filing a complaint.
On the one hand, I wish scientific jargon could be more in step with the colloquial vernacular so we could stop having arguments about evolution being a “theory” and why “potentially hazardous asteroid” doesn’t mean “run for the hills”.
On the other hand, it’d also be nice if science writers did more to educate people about those differences…
Dang. The headline got my hopes up.
I guess I won’t binge on all my valentine goodies tomorrow after all. (making chocolate cheesecake covered in cherry pie filling … mmmm… so good but hard on the tummy)
15 lunar distances is hardly a close call!
He’s preparing an angry mob to storm NASA HQ. Someone has to be held responsible.
Just about any cataclysm science fiction story has an angry mob destroying science, blaming it for the disaster.
Well, after a few years of trump I welcome an extinction level asteroid.
…9 on the FUD scale?!
OMG, we’re all going to die!
Thank you for that. I immediately thought of this and couldn’t remember where it was from. One of my favorite, terrible movies.
Quick get the URL for the vat of lube
Glad I didn’t do my taxes yet.
Yep. It is constantly vacuuming the solar system.
MAR! A! LA! GO!
MAR! A! LA! GO!
MAR! A! LA! GO!
One can hope. Just a tiny little asteroid right there?
NASA reports a “potentially hazardous” asteroid will come close to Earth on February 15, 2020
It’s a “Potentially Hazardous Asteroid” (PHA) because it would cause a huge mess if it hit Earth, and its orbit is such that it makes repeated close passes to Earth.
It won’t hit Earth on this pass. No chance of that whatsoever.
This “close pass” is only “close” in a cosmic sense. At is closest it will be about 15 times farther away than the moon.
Nope. Not even close.
This asteroid has been known since 2002. We have very precise data on its current trajectory.
From JPL’s database:
Close pass distance in au:
Minimum : 0.326935006641845
Nominal: 0.326935478492422
Maximum: 0.32693595034313
So that’s 30,390,551.3 +/- 43.86 miles, with a timing uncertainty of less than 1 second.
Absolutely NO chance it will hit us on this pass.
None. Zip. Zero.
It’s still a PHA, though. No matter how precisely we know its current orbital track, chaotic perturbations from the other planets could cause its future track to shift just enough to hit us, so we need to keep an eye on it in the future.
So a new democratic candidate has entered the race, then?
at least we’re going to die monetized.
I can only support Giant Meteor if he has a running mate like Life-Ending Tsunami to balance the ticket.
I was wondering why “163373 (2002 PZ39)” showed up on my Democratic primary ballot…
A clean sweep of Washington and a bi-partisan agenda
Couldn’t it wait until November 4, 2020, so that we can see whether or not we need its scouring effect?
