Subject: Who Will Be Miss Near Miss?

From: "Rev. Ivan Stang" <stang@subgenius.com>
Newsgroups: alt.slack
Date: Thu, Jun 20, 2002 8:58 PM

DAMN!!!

SO close.

Sooooooo close!

Thursday, 20 June, 2002, 16:29 GMT 17:29 UK

Space rock's close approach

By Dr David Whitehouse
BBC News Online science editor

Astronomers have revealed that on 14 June, an asteroid the size of a
football pitch made one of the closest ever recorded approaches to the
Earth.

It is only the sixth time an asteroid has been seen to penetrate the
Moon's orbit, and this is by far the biggest rock to do so.

What has worried some astronomers, though, is that the space object was
only detected on 17 June, several days after its flyby.

It was found by astronomers working on the Lincoln Laboratory Near
Earth Asteroid Research (Linear) search programme in New Mexico.

Catalogued as 2002MN, the asteroid was travelling at over 10 kilometres
a second (23,000 miles per hour) when it passed Earth at a distance of
around 120,000 km (75,000 miles).

The last time such an object is recorded to have come this close was in
December 1994.

'Wake up call'

The space rock has a diameter of between 50-120 metres (160 - 320
feet). This is actually quite small when compared with many other
asteroids and incapable of causing damage on a global scale.

Nonetheless, an impact from such a body would still be dangerous.

If 2002MN had hit the Earth, it would have caused local devastation
similar to that which occurred in Tunguska, Siberia, in 1908, when
2,000 square kilometres of forest were flattened.

Dr Benny Peiser, of Liverpool John Moores University, UK, told BBC News
Online: "Our ever increasing observational capacity is now detecting
these close shaves from small objects.

"The probability is actually quite high that a Tunguska-sized object
will hit us in our lifetimes."

'Bolt from the blue'

A major issue of concern centres on how late this object was picked up.

Dr John Davies, of the Royal Observatory Edinburgh, has calculated the
orbit of the asteroid from the Linear data.

He concludes that the asteroid came out of the Sun and was impossible
for Linear to see until one hour after its flyby of the Earth on the
14th.

Dr Davies said: "...if an asteroid were to approach close to an
imaginary line joining the Earth and the Sun it would never be visible
in a night-time sky and would be quite impossible to discover with
normal telescopes. Its arrival would come, literally, as a bolt from
the blue."

Space-based telescopes, such as Hubble and the future European Gaia
spacecraft, are the only means of searching for asteroids in the
daytime sky.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Related to this story:
UK asteroid centre opens (18 Apr 02 | Sci/Tech) Asteroid could hit
Earth in 2880 (05 Apr 02 | Sci/Tech) Earth rips space rocks asunder (11
Apr 02 | Sci/Tech)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: Re: Who Will Be Miss Near Miss?
From: "Rev. Ivan Stang" <stang@subgenius.com>

Whizzing by a MERE 75,000 miles from being the biggest news story EVER,
since news was invented, and it's barely a BLIP in the media that'll be
forgotten tomorrow, a teeny zit between some super-models breasts on a
hair-goo commercial. WE WOULDN'T EVEN HAVE KNOWN WHAT HIT US. There'd
have been a nuclear-sized explosion in Madagascar or someplace and
every nuke in the Northern hemisphere would leave its silo. Even if the
nukes didn't go off, it'd be cloudy days and bad crops for a hundred
years.

BUT WILL THEY LEARN?!?!? Fuck no. The XISTS give them this BLATANT
WARNING, a shot RIGHT over their heads, but do they HEED? FUCK NO. They
go on with their pop stars and their sports and their worry about that
textiles contract getting to the print shop on time. GABRIEL BLOWS HIS
HORN RIGHT IN THEIR DUMB, AGOG FACES, and they just kinda go "Huh?" and
carry on with their fretful little lives. NOTHING can shake them from
their complacency. You lob their most trusted symbol into their most
trusted symbol, killing so many that it's like spraying for bugs, and
STILL they act JUST LIKE BUGS.

This rock will come right back around again, and they'll STILL let it
sneak up on 'em. When they COULD have been ready. Hell, as Chas was
pointing out, if they were half serious about all their nuke toys and
space wars, they'd have seen this coming (even if it WAS coming
practically from out of the sun like a bat out of hell), and could have
used it for some HELLACIOUS target practice!

But NO!!! they PUSSIED OUT AGAIN!!!

If they had any fucking balls, they'd pay Dr. Legume to perfect that
Meteor Magnet of his so that NEXT TIME it would hit 'em DEAD ON and put
them out of their fucking misery.

But first, let ME GET OFF!!

See you on the Saucers. They can't come soon enough.

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Subject: Re: Who Will Be Miss Near Miss?
From: "nikolai kingsley" <nikolai@broadway.net.au>

let's pretend for a minute that you, Reverend Commander Stang, are head of a
shuttle mission to fly out to one of the larger asteroids, say, Ikeya-Zhang
(a roughly spherical rock about fifteen kilometres across), attach a bunch
of boosters and gently steer it into an orbit that will, in six years' time,
plant the rock straight down on any city in the world.

for the purposes of awakening the world to the need for more investment in
space exploration (and not for the purposes of wiping out people you don't
like much), which city would you choose?

---
my vote is for Sydney, Australia. of course.

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Subject: Re: Who Will Be Miss Near Miss?
From: "Mr_Blonde@Reservoir_Dogs.com" <Mr_Blonde@Reservoir_Dogs.com>

Butting into line ahead of others here, I'd have to insist that Stang
choose Cut-N-Shoot Texas as the best target, since it is the home-town of
South-Texas-Bubba-Ism. I don't know if anybody in America or Europe would
even notice if Sydney were vaporized, along with a sizeable chunk of OZ...
It might rate a small article on the World Events pages next to Rodan
attacking Tokyo.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: Re: Who Will Be Miss Near Miss?
From: IKOTA <ikota@wistian.com>

"Rev. Ivan Stang" wrote:

> Astronomers have revealed that on 14 June, an asteroid the size of a
> football pitch made one of the closest ever recorded approaches to the
> Earth.

Dam! That's scarier than the one the size of a lacrosse arena that
went by last year.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: Re: Who Will Be Miss Near Miss?(OLD GODS REDUX)
From: "Rev.Geo" <geovoice@earthlink.net>

THANK DOBBS FOR THE SUBGENIUS NEWS SERVICE!!!

I had no friggin' idea that the damn rock even exsisted until I heard you
and Chas talking about it on Swamp Radio last night. Not only is THIS a
sign of the End Times, but here's something even worse: R'leya HAS
RISEN...UP THE STREET FROM MY BLOODY HOUSE!!

If ye dinna believe me, check out these pics and doubt no
more:http://weatherhead.cwru.edu/lewis/lewis.shtml

Running to Brushwood in fear,
Rev.Geo

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Original file name: Who Will Be Miss Near Miss? - converted on Monday, 21 July 2003, 13:44