Watch the asteroid live

[Ohiosam]

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/asteroids/main/index.html

 

[Jackalope]

This is the equivalent of us standing in a field watching a semi drive by 2 miles away and saying "I almost got hit! ".. Two miles away is close when compared to a semi in china, but it's still an astronomical distance away.

lmao.. Cool video none the less.

 

[Outdoorsfellar]

Well, at least it's no meteorite that Russia got hit with. WOW

 

[Ohiosam]

This is the equivalent of us standing in a field watching a semi drive by 2 miles away and saying "I almost got hit! ".. Two miles away is close when compared to a semi in china, but it's still an astronomical distance away.

lmao.. Cool video none the less.

It's probably more like a bullet whizzing 18" past your head while you are riding the tilt-a-whirl.

 

[Jackalope]

You're right. Another way to look at it I guess is the tilt a whirl has a radius of 93 million miles and we're going 67 thousand Mph. If we got missed by 17,000 miles that means 15 min later and we would have gotten hit. We're only 8,000 miles wide. It's 17,000 miles away. So your example is probably closer to scale. If it would have been a day later it would have missed us by 1.6 million miles. lol..

 

[Sticknstring]

Or was it another secret nuke test by North Korea?:smiley_chinrub:

 

[Ohiosam]

You're right. Another way to look at it I guess is the tilt a whirl has a radius of 93 million miles and we're going 67 thousand Mph. If we got missed by 17,000 miles that means 15 min later and we would have gotten hit. We're only 8,000 miles wide. It's 17,000 miles away. So your example is probably closer to scale. If it would have been a day later it would have missed us by 1.6 million miles. lol..

What I find amazing is they knew about this a year ago. They are able to track both the asteroid's and earth's trajectory to know it would be close but not too close. They also claim they know how much the earth's gravitational pull will affect it so that there is less to worry about till 2080.

 

[Jackalope]

Imagine the first person to spot it. I bet he was like. Shhhhhhhiiiiiiiitttttttt. Phew. Ok.

 

[CJD3]

Still, Cool stuff. :smiley_coolpeace: