Oh boy, a REAL doomsday thread!

[NoSwitch]

Blast it or paint it: Asteroid to threaten Earth in 2013

NASA's data shows the 60-meter asteroid, spotted by Spanish stargazers in February, will whistle by Earth in 11 months. Its trajectory will bring it within a hair’s breadth of our planet, raising fears of a possible collision.

The asteroid, known as DA14, will pass by our planet in February 2013 at a distance of under 27,000 km (16,700 miles). This is closer than the geosynchronous orbit of some satellites.

There is a possibility the asteroid will collide with Earth, but further calculation is required to estimate the potential threat and work out how to avert possible disaster, NASA expert Dr. David Dunham told students at Moscow’s University of Electronics and Mathematics (MIEM).

Now THAT's something to lose sleep about.

Paging Bruce Willis!

[Ghettobirds]

chances are they'll push the date back a few decades

[NoSwitch]

Here's a link to the modeling scenarios. So far they haven't forecast a direct hit, but they don't have many data points to run regression on yet.

2012 DA14Earth Impact Risk Summary

[G!RLskater64]

DESTROY IT WITH LAZERS! On a serious note, this very well could be something to actually be worried about, but you never know. Space is a very strange thing. looks to be right on Valentines day too, by looking at that orbital pattern. coincidence? I think not. Haha "HAPPY VALENTINES DAY, HUMANS!" Boom.

EDIT: the Asteroid is marked at -3.28 to a maximum chance of -4.4 on the Palermo scale. anything under -2 isn't considered a threat. also, look at this chart. http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/ip?2.2e-04
There really isn't anything to be worried about. An asteroid came close to Earth a bit back, and was more likely to hit than this one, and didn't.

[NoSwitch]

EDIT: the Asteroid is marked at -3.28 to a maximum chance of -4.4 on the Palermo scale. anything under -2 isn't considered a threat. also, look at this chart. http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/ip?2.2e-04
There really isn't anything to be worried about. An asteroid came close to Earth a bit back, and was more likely to hit than this one, and didn't.

Those numbers are mighty confident considering they only discovered this object 11 days ago. With only 11 days of data points there must be a very high degrees of freedom added to those statistics.

Analysis based on
106 observations spanning 11.419 days
(2012-Feb-23.03431 to 2012-Mar-05.45291)

[Switch]

DESTROY IT WITH LAZERS! On a serious note, this very well could be something to actually be worried about, but you never know. Space is a very strange thing. looks to be right on Valentines day too, by looking at that orbital pattern. coincidence? I think not. Haha "HAPPY VALENTINES DAY, HUMANS!" Boom.EDIT: the Asteroid is marked at -3.28 to a maximum chance of -4.4 on the Palermo scale. anything under -2 isn't considered a threat. also, look at this chart. http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/ip?2.2e-04
There really isn't anything to be worried about. An asteroid came close to Earth a bit back, and was more likely to hit than this one, and didn't.

Nah,according to that woman in Ghostbusters II,the world will end on February 14,2016

[GridgeSauce]

If it does hit, well, **** happens. We might as well just have fun, and live every day as if it were the last.

[G!RLskater64]

I agree, It is only from 11 days of research/Discovery, but, don't you think that if they track other celestial bodies from 100 years ahead of time, that 11 months for it to get here isn't that long? Therefore, the results COULD prove devastating, but may not change at all.

[Baller]

Meh if it hits us it hits us. It's not like any governments will be able to cooperate long enough to come up with a plan to destroy it. Anyway odds are it would land somewhere in the ocean and I live in Ohio so I'm not too worried haha.

[G!RLskater64]

^Could be, but if its going fast enough,it could screw up the orbital path. (Maybe)
I know it sounds like bollocks coming from me, but I don't think im THAT clueless.

[Baller]

^Could be, but if its going fast enough,it could screw up the orbital path. (Maybe)
I know it sounds like bollocks coming from me, but I don't think im THAT clueless.

Nope. The earths orbit is already pretty elliptical. It would take a lot more than a little asteroid to knock us far enough off course to be significant.

[TGIMUNDAY]

Nope. The earths orbit is already pretty elliptical. It would take a lot more than a little asteroid to knock us far enough off course to be significant.

It would take a Goku, probably.

[NoSwitch]

^Could be, but if its going fast enough,it could screw up the orbital path. (Maybe)
I know it sounds like bollocks coming from me, but I don't think im THAT clueless.

Nope. The earths orbit is already pretty elliptical. It would take a lot more than a little asteroid to knock us far enough off course to be significant.

60 meters would leave a mark, about the size of a small town. The article compares it to one nuclear bomb or the unexplained explosion that leveled that forest in Russia back around 1918. I guess the Japan disaster or 2003 tsunami might be similar levels of death and devastation. I just wonder how much they will say if impact really does look possible next year. They can't even predict with any confidence where a satellite will crash when the orbit decays. They won't know where this thing's gonna hit in time to evacuate a city. Hours before the impact they will probably have it narrowed down to 1/4th of the planet or a complete miss.

[G!RLskater64]

To me, It looks like a miss. but, If it does come into the atmosphere, I think the decay would shrink the size of it significantly, maybe enough as to not cause as big of a problem.

[NoSwitch]

It could very well (is currently predicted to) pass close enough to take out a few satellites and fk up your GPS and TV for awhile.

[GridgeSauce]

It could very well (is currently predicted to) pass close enough to take out a few satellites and fk up your GPS and TV for awhile.

That will be the end of the world, for sure. No GPS or TV?! What will we do without them?!?!?! Well, I guess, if cell phones still work, it might be worth staying alive.

[G!RLskater64]

^Lol As long as it doesn't touch my Telus satellite, or my interwebz, I'm ok. And I don't even watch TV as it is.

[kk360]

In before "We're all ****ed"

[NoSwitch]

In before "We're all ****ed"

I can't wait to berate all the noobs that open Asteroid threads next February instead of bumping this one!

[G!RLskater64]

In before "We're all ****ed"

Would you just drop it already?