Remember all the talk about the "Elite" building underground bunkers and waiting to ride out "The End"?
Maybe that explains why all this makes me a little nervous....
Asteroid 2005 YU55 which is about 1,300 feet (400 meters) in diameter, will approach Earth within 0.85 lunar distances on November 8th, 2011.
A lunar distance is the distance of the Earth to the Moon or about 240,000 miles.
Although YU55 is classified as a potentially hazardous object, it poses no threat of an Earth collision for at least the next 100 years.
But before that, good old C/2010 X1(better known as comet Elenin) will past the Earth on October 16th, 2011 at a distance of 21,000,000 miles (0.23 AU).
(1 AU is equal to 93 Million Miles. For reference, the comet Hale-Bopp had its closest approach to Earth on March 22nd, 1997 at a distance of 1.315 AU and the Great Comet of 1811 came within 1.04 AU.)
Also on August 15th, 2011, comet 45P/Honda-Mrkos-Pajdusakova, will pass within 5,590,000 miles of the Earth (0.0601 AU).
And let us not forget 99942 Apophis, despite all the initial hoopla, only has a 1 in 250,000 chance of hitting the Earth in 2036.
But don't worry, by then we should have those asteroid killer missles online right?
No comments:
Post a Comment