AKA "Apocalypse Not" or "Armageddon Nowhere" or "We're here to kick ass-teroid and chew bubblegum, and we're all out of ass-teroid."
The idea of an asteroid or comet coming down and decimating the Earth is certainly a scary one; if you don't think so, ask the dinosaurs. To at least give us a heads up before certain doom, NASA and other agencies do their best to track these otherworldly doombringers.
Well, for quite some time, astronomers have been keeping their eye on Apophis. They believed that the 1,000 foot-wide asteroid had a chance (remote, sure, but still a chance nonetheless) of colliding with the planet in 2036.No one Many asked: Would this be the apocalypse people on TV tell you the Mayans predicted?
Until now.
Sky and Telescope
So relax everyone. Of all the many problems and threats facing humanity, and life on this planet in general, "death by asteroid" is not one of them. For now, anyway.
It's time to celebrate people. We're going to live - at least, for just a little while longer.
The idea of an asteroid or comet coming down and decimating the Earth is certainly a scary one; if you don't think so, ask the dinosaurs. To at least give us a heads up before certain doom, NASA and other agencies do their best to track these otherworldly doombringers.
Well, for quite some time, astronomers have been keeping their eye on Apophis. They believed that the 1,000 foot-wide asteroid had a chance (remote, sure, but still a chance nonetheless) of colliding with the planet in 2036.
Until now.
...the sizable Earth-crossing asteroid 99942 Apophis will pose no threat when it comes near our planet in 2036.
Right now Apophis is in the midst of a rather distant yet much-awaited pass in Earth's vicinity, coming within 9 million miles (14½ million km) earlier today. It's been tracked for about 2½ weeks by NASA's 230-foot (70-m) Goldstone radio/radar dishin California, and those observations have given astronomers the confidence to issue an "all clear" for the foreseeable future.
"Goldstone single-pixel observations of Apophis have ruled out the potential 2036 Earth impact," says Jon Giorgini, a dynamicist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Based on revised orbit calculations, he says Apophis will then come no closer than about 14 million miles — and more likely miss us by something closer to 35 million miles. Moreover, the radar data have improved the asteroid's positional uncertainty so much that dynamicists can now accurately predict its trajectory decades into the future.
So relax everyone. Of all the many problems and threats facing humanity, and life on this planet in general, "death by asteroid" is not one of them. For now, anyway.
It's time to celebrate people. We're going to live - at least, for just a little while longer.