Tag: asteroid

So, hey, asteroid spitting out rocks, no biggie, it’s no big dea BEWARE! BEWARE THE DEATH ROCK DESCENDING FROM THE DEEP BLACK! KEEP WATCHING THE SKIES! :dragged off:

I mean, we all know what’s happening here. That’s right: Attitude jets.

For the last year, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft has been circling a large asteroid named Bennu that regularly passes uncomfortably close to Earth. The spacecraft has been painstakingly mapping the asteroid’s rocky surface using a suite of cameras and other instruments that will help it determine where to land next year. Once NASA selects a final landing site, OSIRIS-REx will kiss Bennu just long enough to scoop up a sample to bring back to Earth in 2023.

Many scientists expect the Bennu sample to revolutionize our understanding of asteroids, especially those that are near Earth and pose the greatest threat from space to life as we know it. But as detailed in a paper published this week in Science, NASA has already started making surprising discoveries around this alien world. Earlier this year, the OSIRIS-REx team witnessed particles exploding from the asteroid’s surface—and the team’s not sure why.

Continue reading So, hey, asteroid spitting out rocks, no biggie, it’s no big dea BEWARE! BEWARE THE DEATH ROCK DESCENDING FROM THE DEEP BLACK! KEEP WATCHING THE SKIES! :dragged off:

Another ASTEROID OF DOOOOOOOM misses Earth.

Now here is some objective, non-sensationalist science journalism for you:

Massive, unstoppable rock swings past Earth

…An asteroid the size of the U.S.S. Nimitz passed by Earth Tuesday. NASA’s Near-Earth Object Program says the impact of the rock, dubbed 2005 YU55, would equal a 4,000-megaton blast and create 70-foot high tsunami waves, CBS News reports.

That’s near 200,000 times more powerful than the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima or Nagasaki.

NASA predicted the murderous cosmic body will miss our planet by about 202,000 miles.

Via Drudge. Don’t get me wrong: anything this big ever hits us, it’ll ruin our whole day.  And we need a zombie plan for this kind of scenario.  Still: breathless, much?