Meteor strike in Russia yesterday!

Originally posted by Kepler
That's because the scientists who spotted the chunk of space rock got stroppy when their research was misused. As far as I know, there is noe thought to be no chance that the rock will hit us in 2028. There will be a chance when it comes around again a few years later but even then prediction of which bit of earth the rock will hit aren't going to be possible.

Well thats reasuring. i will re set my end of the world clock to 2033 🙂 Do you know is theres any plans to, do they have already, an organised way of looking for them?

Originally posted by e4chris
Well thats reasuring. i will re set my end of the world clock to 2033 🙂 Do you know is theres any plans to, do they have already, an organised way of looking for them?

Neo.jpl.NASA.gov

Take out the caps (my tablet is moving in mysterious ways today) and you have a link to NASA's Near-Earth Object program. There's a comet that might hit Mars soon!

Don you know what % of the sky it covers? Is the movie correct at 3%?

Originally posted by e4chris
Don you know what % of the sky it covers? Is the movie correct at 3%?

From recollection, the movie is mostly incorrect throughout. The Near Earth Object Program doesn't look at a specific patch of sky simply because the earth moves! Greater attention is likely paid to the ecliptic because that is the plane of the solar system and most of the stuff that orbits close to us is in that plane. Comets can come from any direction but tend to be picked up by other observing programs because they brighten as they move inwards in the solar system.

Of course, you could always go look for yourself. The site is very informative.

Originally posted by Kepler
From recollection, the movie is mostly incorrect throughout. The Near Earth Object Program doesn't look at a specific patch of sky simply because the earth moves! Greater attention is likely paid to the ecliptic because that is the plane of the solar system and most of the stuff that orbits close to us is in that plane. Comets can come from any direction but ...[text shortened]... olar system.

Of course, you could always go look for yourself. The site is very informative.

I will look it up thanks, was just picking your brain as it seems you have done already!

Originally posted by Kepler
From recollection, the movie is mostly incorrect throughout. The Near Earth Object Program doesn't look at a specific patch of sky simply because the earth moves! Greater attention is likely paid to the ecliptic because that is the plane of the solar system and most of the stuff that orbits close to us is in that plane. Comets can come from any direction but ...[text shortened]... olar system.

Of course, you could always go look for yourself. The site is very informative.

I did think that '3% of the sky' line was funny.... You could probably get away with saying it too... but it would be good to know someone is looking thoroughly. I wonder if the russians knew that one was coming?

Originally posted by e4chris
Don you know what % of the sky it covers? Is the movie correct at 3%?

Well, if you crank out the numbers, the sky total is 360 degrees. Now 3% of that is just over 10 degrees. The moon is about 3000 miles across at about a quarter million miles and covers less than one degree which if you stick with that, would be about 0.03%. Any near earth object would be only a few hundred feet across at most and the last one went by at about 18,000 miles up. I am on the phone with Kmart right now discussing a bum tv I just bought a few days ago so I can't do the numbers on that right now but you can rest assured any object less than one mile across at 18,000 miles would not even be visible to the naked eye much less cover whole DEGREES. Look at an aircraft carrier, say 1000 feet long, 1/5th of a mile. Can you imagine even being able to see it at all, say 1000 miles away?

Originally posted by sonhouse
Well, if you crank out the numbers, the sky total is 360 degrees. Now 3% of that is just over 10 degrees. The moon is about 3000 miles across at about a quarter million miles and covers less than one degree which if you stick with that, would be about 0.03%. Any near earth object would be only a few hundred feet across at most and the last one went by at ab ...[text shortened]... t long, 1/5th of a mile. Can you imagine even being able to see it at all, say 1000 miles away?

Degrees are linear measure, the sky is an area. Most astronomers use steradians as a measure of angular area

Originally posted by e4chris
I did think that '3% of the sky' line was funny.... You could probably get away with saying it too... but it would be good to know someone is looking thoroughly. I wonder if the russians knew that one was coming?

I don't think anyone knew that one was coming. It is all well and good looking at the entire sky but at any one time you can only see what the detectors attached to your telescope are picking up. Most telescopes are going to "see" less than 3% of the sky in one go and you have to wait for the data to be analysed. Add in the speed these things travel at, the speed the earth is travelling at and other factors such as time available and a lot of the small stuff isn't going to be noticed until it hits you on the head.