I assume firing shit at it?
We have ICBM plans this us similar to intercepting one of those
^ That exists because they expect someone to be around after the global destruction to re-plant the seeds. I’m sure if you’re rich and powerful enough there’s a plan for you. For the rest of us… ever seen the movie The Road, or played the game Fallout?
IF a true planet killing asteroid was spotted in time (as in it will be here 5 years) there are theoretical things that could be done to deflect it. The problem is we don’t have a real good track record of spotting these things in time. 2012 XE54 passed so close it was closer than the moon and we only knew it was coming 2 days before it passed by. There was another good sized one that passed by really close and we didn’t know until it had already gone by.
Well, the moon is 238,900 miles. So the one passing at 17,000 miles is VERY FUCKING CLOSE.
So the object passing us later today and the one over Russia this morning came from totally different directions and are unrelated. But NASA / DA14 couldn’t ask for a better pre-game show, lol.
Also a scary thought.
17k miles is like the width of a hair in terms of astronomy.
And an astroid the size of a house is like pebble in terms of astronomy too, but itll still change our lives as we know it.
Honestly, there are a lot of random space things that can kill us (gamma ray bursts for example.) Worrying about them isn’t a completely useless exercise, but there is also very little we can do to avoid them.
Exactly. Talking about it and getting people to realize it though helps find the funding to at least look for them. Spotting one at 5 years out instead of 5 days could be the difference between awesome show of engineering saving the world or 5 days of total chaos before the world ends.
Which begs the question. If a true planet killer was coming in 2 months and the scientists of the world had concluded there was nothing they could do about it, would you even want to know?
My wife was just saying that 100 tons of rocks come in from space every day. Interesting fact. Didn’t realize it was so common.
Relatively speaking it is…but 17,000 miles is still 17,000 miles.
the sonic boom from that things is outstanding!
You can buy it on ebay, the user name is Russianmafia. 
It’s because we can’t see it where we live. Go to someplace remote with no light pollution (northern Canada, etc.) and just look at the sky. You’ll see lots of baby versions of this going across the sky every minute or so.
Russians dont give a fuck. Just walk on by while a meteor hits. no big deal.
Satellites orbit at 22k. Certainly a near miss.
NYSPEED scientists,
A collision would cause obvious damage but can a near miss do damage? Take out satellites, etc?
Ban assault meteors!
They are black and scary looking.