Potential of Dangerous Asteroid to Hit the Earth on January 26

 

ZeroHedge

 

Potentially dangerous asteroid to fly by Earth on January 26

 

The asteroid, named 2004 BL86 by scientists, is estimated to be between 440-1,000 meters in diameter. 1.2 million kilometers is approximately three times the distance from the Earth to the Moon.

 

A space object is considered potentially dangerous if it crosses the Earth’s orbit at a distance of less than 0.05 AU (approximately 19.5 distances from the Earth to the Moon), and if its diameter exceeds 100-150 meters. Objects of this size are large enough to cause unprecedented destruction, or generate a mammoth tsunami in case they fall into the ocean.

Obviously, there is the potential that this dangerous asteroid to fly byhits Earth on January 26, in just three weeks.

 3 is less than 19.5 distances from the Earth to the Moon, and 440-1,000 is greater than 100-150 meters.

I cannot forget that these same astronomers had warned us several weeks in advance about a totally different asteroid passing near the Earth, coming from an entirely different direction than the Chelyabinsk meteorite (for which we received no warning) the very same day that it exploded over Russia.  What are the odds of that?  Talk about a coincidental blind spot!  Weird.

 

 

The earlier-predicted close approach of another, larger asteroid that same day, the roughly 30-metre 367943 Duende (at the time still known by its provisional designation 2012 DA14) occurred about 16 hours later; the very different orbits of the two objects showed they were unrelated to each other.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelyabinsk_meteor

There is some entertaining post-apocalyptic reading on this subject.  The classic is Lucifer’s Hammer, by Jerry Pournelle, but more recently, The Perseids Collapse trilogy, by Steven Konkoly, is maybe even better, but you will want to first read his novel, The Jakarta Pandemic.  In addition, The Road, by Cormac McCarthy may also be pertinent, especially if you have young children, and it is very well written.