Apocalyptic Trivia

“That potentially hazardous asteroid doodad (PHA) from a few years ago, 1997 XF11, was only approximately one mile across, but was closing with Earth at such a high velocity that a fairly direct impact would have expended as much energy as the detonation of one Hiroshima-sized bomb every second for some 13 years.

Talk about your tredecaphobia...”

“not only would it have expended as much energy but it would give off as much energy too”

“Dat's uh one-uh spicey meat-uh-ball-uh!”

“"things" have been hitting the Earth for some time now. We are due for one to hit. I don't know if it will be in our lifetime, but one will hit. I keep prepared for anything, be it being snowed in, tornado, whatever. I have thought about building something on land up north, but that is a far off dream.

The questions is this: If there was one on it's way, would the government really say anything about it? It might be better not to say anything and advoid the mas chaos that would ensue....”

“Yep.”

“Okay, here's my pet peeve concerning "asteroid strike warnings."

Every time the astronomers find one of these things, CNN runs an article about it on their website. They always, always include this "artist's rendering" of what the collision would look like. The picture shows a HUGE asteroid hitting the Earth, one that looks about as big as one of the larger asteroids in the Belt. Of course, the asteroid being described in the story is always much smaller, usually in the 1-2km or smaller range. Still big enough to do some damage, but nowhere near as large as the small planetoid the illustration shows.


Sheeze.......”

“Too bad we can't have some of them meteor-proof turtle shells like in that movie "Enemy Mine".”

“If there was one on it's way, would the government really say anything about it? It might be better not to say anything and advoid the mas chaos that would ensue...."
laqtis
10:25:57 AM
12/17/02

Would the "government" be the only one knowing it's coming?”

“Yeah those were cool...lol....you gotta wonder exactly how natural selection would work under those conditions....”

“Extra points for choosing deep shaft mining as a career....”

“at least initially, LOL”

“chili, they would be after they assassinated all the astronomers. But a small core of teenaged amateur astronomers would manage to get the warning out to the whole world one week before the asteroid hit, and the government would have to admit that they have this huge anti-asteroid gun on the backside of the moon which they were trying to keep secret for "national security reasons"...

The gun, still untested, would be made to work at the last minute by one of the group of teenaged amateur astronomers who makes a simple but obvious suggestion that none of the PhD.-anti-meteorite-gun-builders (who have dedicated their lives to building this thing) thought of. She makes the change to the gun, which fires at the very last second, completely obliterating the asteroid, somehow without leaving any fragments or dust of any size whatsoever.


Nahh..........”

“"Would the "government" be the only one knowing it's coming?........." I think that it would be our government that would find it first. This country has the best "devices" for findingj these things out. I don't really see the Russia, China et al putting stuff up there to look at the universe. This country is the only one that is making the Space Station work. So, yes, I do beleive that it would be our government that would have the best chance to find something like this.

PS we also have monitors up in the air during heavy activity (like meteor showers). This is so we can confirm that there is nuke attack happening and reassure the rest of the world. Some of those things go off in the atmosphere with enough energy that some might mistake it as an attack.”

“"This is so we can confirm that there is nuke attack happening......."

sorry that should read "that is ther NO nuke attack happening".

blech!”

“Laqtis, I don't know. Many of these things are discovered by amatuers, aren't they? I don't know about asteroids so much, but definitely true for comets. What do you guys think?”

“if this isn't a total cue for Marvin Gardens, i don't know what is!”

“Yes, I believe that many, many astronomical discoveries are made by amatuers. There aren't really that many professional astronomers in the world (at least according to my astronomy professor this semester!).”

“Excellent point, smiley girl!”

“Yes, those systems had to be recalibrated so that natural phenomena didn't start WWIII. Much of the data they collected during the Cold War has been declassified and studied by the folks researching Near Earth Objects (NEOs), Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHAs) and the like.

Most of the objects discovered in the last few years don't have people's names associated with them. They are usually discovered by automated systems like Spacewatch and LINEAR.

If you see something... contact these folks.”

“And don't forget to duck!

LOL”

“Tilt, you're making me want to get back into Astronomy again.. great hobby.”

“Hey, it was Astronomy (and freezing my butt off on Winter nights) that got me into backpacking.


(it looks like LINEAR has been busy)”

“Cool! I have a dobsonian mounted 6" Newtonian Reflector.. made by Orion. All the stuff I used to see.. the galaxies, nebulas, globular clusters, Saturn, Jupiter, etc., was wicked. Live right next to NYC now, too much light pollution.. but it'd be awesome to bring that sucker up to the Catskills or elsewhere out in the country.. I miss it!”

“Do It! <G>

I hear those light pollution filters can help, too...”

“Tilt - what starchart producing software do you recommend? Is the Redshift series still a good bet?”

“Coool Deal, Bit!


I don't have a Whole lot of experience in that department, Artex... maybe you can find some info behind one of these links. Jeeeez, there's TONs of that stuff now, <G>”

“Cewl, thanks for the link. I'll check it out more in depth when I get home this evening.”

“I remember reading a few years ago... if you were running TheSky software, it had remote telescope control capabilities so you could buy time on some huge telescopes on the other side of the country (or the world?) and run your entire observing schedule from your home PC.

It was something like $900 for half the night on a 20-inch Schmidt-Cassegrain, for example. I guess if you're at that level, the cost of the software is incedental(!)”

“Not apocalyptic but definitely trivial:


the Ampersand is in actually a ligature

(æ, œ...)


"The most common ligature is the ampersand &. This was originally a ligature of E and t, the Latin word for "and". It has exactly the same use (except for pronunciation) in French, and is used in the English language. The ampersand comes in many different forms. Because of its ubiquity it is generally no longer considered a ligature, but a logogram. Like many other ligatures, it has at times been considered a letter (e.g. in early Modern English). In English it is pronounced "and", not "et". Similarly, the Dollar sign, $, originated as a ligature but is now a logogram."

(Wikipedia)



PS
Back to the Apocalyptic Trivia... Here's an updated link for 1997 XF11.”

“20% of the children born in India die by age 5 from illnesses contracted from drinking polluted water.”

“Your point is...”

“a ligature tight around their throat would have prevented this. Obvious connection.”

“MOM ---- the psychopaths are screwing up my trivia thread!”

“Nuke them!”

“Kewl!”

“Homer Simpson has a Starland Vocal Band tattoo.”