So much for the "near miss" with the asteroid?

[Tenzhi]

Aaron Williams has a poster for that.

Incidentally... shouldn't that be "Meteors"?  They're not really saying anything until they enter your atmosphere...

[FatherXmas]

NASA now estimates it was 17m in size weighing around 10,000 tons and was equivalent to nearly 1/2 megaton of energy released.

[blackjak]

Yeah. I used to live in Orlando and the booms made by a shuttle takeoff at Cape Canaveral were way smaller.

[Nightmarer]

Let me apologize for not having read the whole thread (yet) but I just wanted you guys to know something and I'll try to be crystal clear:

We spaniards discovered the asteroid so... did you REALLY expect our calculations to be accurate?

Honestly, less worrying about the asteroid's name and more double checking calculations, we're spaniards after all so we're counting on someone to double chack calculations and fix them because we already lost interest on it, discovering an asteroid might take a few weeks, but bragging about it lasts a lifetime 

[JaguarX]

Is it at all shocking that taking away the escapes we use to cope with the fact that we are always teetering on the edge of unpreventable disasters of varying magnitudes is of more immediate importance than the distant threat or realisation of such disasters?  We need to be distracted from the Total Perspective Vortices that naturally present themselves lest our psyches collapse in upon themselves.

hmmm I guess people need escape from the problems. *sigh*  miss the days when people faced problems instead of trying to escape from them.

Wait, you dont need the nuts to do anything these days. All a person have to do is get online talk big and bad to show how tough they are and they are immediate bad panacake. :p

[FatherXmas]

Watching the coverage of 2012 DA14 passing I'm reminded how much I miss Miles O'Brien or Lou Dobbs on CNN (both really big space geeks).  They would have at least told people what the name 2012 DA14 means which could be used to illustrate just how many of these things are found every year.  CNN resorted to putting their weatherman on to explain a bit about the asteroid since CNN laid off all of their science and tech reporters back in 2008.

2012 - Year of discovery
D - Discovered 2nd half of February
A14 - Relative number discovered in that period.  It starts with A, goes to Z (skips I because it could be confused with 1) then starts over at A1 - Z1, then A2 - Z2, etc.

So 2012 DA14 means it was the 351st asteroid discovered in the 2nd half of February 2012.

Oh, there's been 5 (or 6) asteroids that have based closer to Earth than 2012 DA14, those were very small and only discovered a few days before or after their pass.

And by (or 6) I mean asteroid 2008 TC3 which was discovered about 20 hour before it actually hit Earth above the Sudan in 2008.  The first object whose impact area was calculated ahead of time.

[houtex]

I so wanna say NEERRRRDDSSS!! but then I'd be hypocritical about being a space geek, and this stuff hopefully will kick start the 'get the hell off this rock'-itis that needs to infect everyone.  We're not exactly safe from something ELE sized, now, are we?

Wow, that blast though... scary.  Cool, but scary.

/Salutin' mah fellow geeks!  Space rocks!
//Oh, yeah, that pun wasn't supposed to happen.  Crud.  Leavin' it.

[JaguarX]

I so wanna say NEERRRRDDSSS!! but then I'd be hypocritical about being a space geek, and this stuff hopefully will kick start the 'get the hell off this rock'-itis that needs to infect everyone.  We're not exactly safe from something ELE sized, now, are we?

Wow, that blast though... scary.  Cool, but scary.

/Salutin' mah fellow geeks!  Space rocks!
//Oh, yeah, that pun wasn't supposed to happen.  Crud.  Leavin' it.

never been safe, cant do much about it. When it happens, it will happen. In the mean time I'm just enjoying the ride until last call. Although I'm kind of curious of what kind of creatures will spring up if an ELE did happen and wipes the planet clean of humans. Will they immediately start screaming about global warming because the glacier that is covering Florida after the cold that may come after the ELE is melting or will a couple meet and one of them say "the end is near".

[eabrace]

Incidentally... shouldn't that be "Meteors"?  They're not really saying anything until they enter your atmosphere...

I would much prefer that those asteroids that make us question how our space program is coming along remain asteroids so that we can still have these discussions. 

[TimtheEnchanter]

Incidentally... shouldn't that be "Meteors"?  They're not really saying anything until they enter your atmosphere...

In space, nobody can hear you... uhh.... make rock noises?

[houtex]

never been safe, cant do much about it. When it happens, it will happen. In the mean time I'm just enjoying the ride until last call. Although I'm kind of curious of what kind of creatures will spring up if an ELE did happen and wipes the planet clean of humans. Will they immediately start screaming about global warming because the glacier that is covering Florida after the cold that may come after the ELE is melting or will a couple meet and one of them say "the end is near".

Well, yeah, I know we've never been safe, Jag, just like the Dino's and Chixchilub (sp?)

But... we DO have an opportunity to NOT BE HERE, and that's what I'd like to see:  Some o' us'n's not here, but out there.  Thataway.

/I know, I know... pipe dream.  Still like to see it.

[Tenzhi]

hmmm I guess people need escape from the problems. *sigh*  miss the days when people faced problems instead of trying to escape from them.

Facing problems is something you do when there's a chance of overcoming and/or preventing them.  When that's not an option you hide in a hole and hope the problem goes away, preferably leaving you in livable conditions afterwards even if you have to face the problem of picking up a few pieces.

[TimtheEnchanter]

But... we DO have an opportunity to NOT BE HERE, and that's what I'd like to see:  Some o' us'n's not here, but out there.  Thataway.

/I know, I know... pipe dream.  Still like to see it.

There's a Dutch space agency currently looking for volunteers for a future Mars colony.

[FatherXmas]

[Mister Bison]

In space, nobody can hear you... uhh.... make rock noises?

Yes, some people can... If they have radio to listen to a radio station that broadcasted rock... music :-)

[houtex]

There's a Dutch space agency currently looking for volunteers for a future Mars colony.

Yeah, I read about that.  Very very interesting concept, and I approve of it.  And... frankly... sometimes I wonder if I should sign up.  Doubt they'd take me, being short, somewhat overweight, 45 and having a teensy bit of pre-hypertension.

And that whole "where's my shower and toilet?" in the morning.. that might be tough to deal with...

But I applaud their efforts, and sincerely hope they get good people to volunteer their lives for the greater good of mankind.  Because, waxin' poetic, that is nothing short of what it is, and it is a spectacular effort being thought about here.

Also, reading about this:
http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Technology/Building_a_lunar_base_with_3D_printing

Makes it quite hopeful that this can be done really really easy with Mars too, maybe.

/Humans, sometimes, they don't suck so bad.

[Lucretia MacEvil]

It seems like that particular chunk of rock was a "near miss" like George Carlin talks about (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuCN6CD8j_s).

Now that I got that out of the way...

There's a Dutch space agency currently looking for volunteers for a future Mars colony.

When I was a kid, I visited the Kennedy Space Center on a field trip.  While there, I purchased a t-shirt that said "Space Available:  I signed up for Mars!".  I'm really tempted to order an adult-sized copy of that shirt and look into that Mars colony thing....

[JetFlash]

What impressed me was the shaking of the car from the primary and followup sonic booms.  Based on the time delay between the meteor passing and the sonic boom it was that "loud" roughly 25-30 miles away.

The "boom" was not from a sonic boom, but from the rock literally exploding from the heat and pressure of entering the atmosphere.  As mentioned above, the force was equivalent to a small thermonuclear device.

[Mister Bison]

The "boom" was not from a sonic boom, but from the rock literally exploding from the heat and pressure of entering the atmosphere.  As mentioned above, the force was equivalent to a small thermonuclear device.

Otherwise known as a shockwave.

[blackjak]

I think you can hear the double boom of the sonic boom (there is usually two)  on one of the videos as well as the shockwave.