The Asteroid That Could End The World!

[SM]

Off we go!

[BishopIII]

 They'll let them hit, the governments will just bleat about it being too expensive to actually do something about it, like they always do about everything that actually needs doing in space, i.e. colonisation of the rest of Solar System to act as a slow-release valve on overpopulation here! Not to mention all the highly valuable rare-earth metals available to mine that would pay for the whole thing ten times over! 

[Hieronymus]

Those minerals might actually be very expensive to extract.  Alternately, if they're easy to extract, then harvesting them from space would flood the market and reduce their value, which would make rich people very sad.

[Pandorag]

I wouldn't worry too much, Superman will save us. 

[Neltharion]

If I can be arsed.

[Hubbs]

If your talking about the 2036 asteroid then I'm afraid there is quite a reasonable risk from it passing close to us, doesn't have to hit us, if its close enough it will cause huge problems.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/99942_Apophis

http://asteroidapophis.com/

[Neltharion]

You are still more likely to win the lottery and get struck by lightning seven times than that Asteroid hitting us, it will be several million Kms away.

[SiL]

There's a slim, slim chance that it could come back and smack us in 2036 -- but it's between 1 and 2.5 percent.

[Neltharion]

Plenty of years to stop it.

Anyone who suggests nuking it will get a slap around the head.

[LargeLeader]

Send a group of blue-collar deep-core drillers to plant a bomb on the asteroid.

[Hubbs]

Yeah but it doesn't need to hit us does it? even if it flies by it can still cause big problems, even if it isn't that close when it does fly by haha its large enough I believe.

[Neltharion]

Problems like what?

Jehovah Witness's predicting the end is near and all that jazz? Thats merely an inconvenience.

[BlackWatch]

I'd laugh if it landed on Canada.

I wouldn't!

If your talking about the 2036 asteroid then I'm afraid there is quite a reasonable risk from it passing close to us, doesn't have to hit us, if its close enough it will cause huge problems.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/99942_Apophis

http://asteroidapophis.com/

It will pass very close to us. Between Earth and our geo-synchronous satellites... which is very, very close! But astrophysicists are certain it will not hit us. It may, however, as SiL mentioned, come back and smack us seven years later if it happens to pass through what physicists call a gravity "keyhole". It's an area of space that has stronger gravity than usual and may pull the asteroid into an orbit of Earth which will cause it to come back and most likely hit us in the Pacific somewhere between Hawaii and the California coast. But again, it is a slim chance of that happening. There will be some day, however, when mankind will face a planet killer and as mentioned the gravity tractor is one of the leading defenses since it is theoretically effective against all types of asteroids. Another defense against solid asteroids is using one or more giant mirror satellites that concentrate the energy of the Sun and burn a hole in the asteroid vapourizing the rock. The vapour essentially acts as a thruster and pushes the asteroid out of the path of the Earth.

Personally I'm not worried about the rocks we know about and can see, I'm worried about the rocks we don't know about or don't see. Like the many that scientists only see after they pass us. Many of which that are large enough to cause some major damage on Earth.

[Hudson]

There's a slim, slim chance that it could come back and smack us in 2036 -- but it's between 1 and 2.5 percent.

So you're telling me there's a chance!

[SiL]

Yeah but it doesn't need to hit us does it?

Yeah, it kind'a does.

It's a huge rock, yes, but unless it actually hits us, it's not going to do anything.