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Pingaring t1_iuio9gf wrote

You and your children, will have been dead for centuries before this asteroid closes our orbit.

Also might be worth noting this "planet killer" is said to be 1km in diameter. Which with appropriate kinetic force is equivalent to about 1k Tsar Bomba detonations. Or enough potential energy to destroy the entirety of NYC up to Newburg and down into Hamilton Township. Environmental impact would be devastating but I wouldn't call this an extinction level event.

When these news articles start using phases like "Chicxulub" and "in our life time" then it's time to start opening the good wine.

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WhirlyBirdPilotBlue t1_iuiolpv wrote

Speak for yourself weakling!

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JablesMcgoo t1_iuir2hf wrote

"No one lives forever, no one. But with advances in modern science and my high level income, it's not crazy to think I can live to be 245, maybe 300."

-Ricky Bobby

- Elon Musk (probably)

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StelioKontos117 t1_iuivjg0 wrote

“I plan to live forever, of course, but barring that I'd settle for a couple thousand years. Even five hundred would be pretty nice.” CEO Nwabudike Morgan

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DaMuller t1_iuji5np wrote

Honestly, for me it isn't so much death but old age that scares me. 20 years of prime is just not enough.

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Scary_Princess t1_iuk4kqd wrote

I think you can get a lot more than 20 years of prime particularly if you take good care of yourself. Even if you don’t take good care of yourself genetics can be kind.

I work in healthcare I see plenty of 50 year olds that there prime ended somewhere in there late 30’s early 40’s I also see plenty of 60/70 year olds who can be argued to still be in there prime. I know a 60 year old surgeon who still runs ultra marathons (50+ km).

Still I understand your sentiment death isn’t what scares me either but the feebleness and pain of old age.

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Helliarc t1_iuiuzoq wrote

It's not entirely unrealistic to think that the oldest living human is alive today.

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James-VanderGeek t1_iujt3wx wrote

Are you pulling a Jack Handy? That statement has been true since the beginning of humanity.

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IAMSTILLHERE2020 t1_iujyqcr wrote

 "Come on, you sons of bitches, do you want to live forever?"

Sgt Major Dan Daly, USMC...tossing and turning on his grave.

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jsgnextortex t1_iujeoff wrote

Honestly, I could live forever if I wanted to, but Im just lazy, I swear.

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katharsisdesign t1_iuj167t wrote

Maybe we can be proactive to future generations for once instead of assuming we'd be dead by then anyway.

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acidrain69 t1_iujg5qb wrote

We are being proactive. NASA just tested DART. That’s being proactive. It’s going to be up to future generations to improve on or maintain that level of preparedness.

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Neverending_Rain t1_iujobfl wrote

There is no current sign of it being on a collision course with Earth. In a few centuries there's a chance it'll be a risk to the planet. It's quite possible that it won't be a threat in the future at all. Trying to change its trajectory now would be pointless. We're already working on ways of diverting asteroids such as the DART mission. There's no need to do anything other than continue that research.

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Pingaring t1_iuj5ptq wrote

While that sentiment is healthy to have, it wouldn't apply to this scenario. The current stage logistics make it virtually impossible to carry out such a mission. Especially one that would be measured in centuries, forcing future scientists to have to interface with technology 150+ years outdated, obsolete, and defunct.

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katharsisdesign t1_iujk4co wrote

Didn't we essentially just shoot a rocket called dart at an asteroid to hit it off the trajectory. It doesn't seem to fall inside your realm of logic of there's no point. You have no scope on what things have a point or how much money and time we waste on things that have less of a point. There can be non human life on earth that we save. Or it could be cavemen again. Who knows. But it's happened before and will again. The dinosaurs got rinsed, and every religion mentions a flood that erased civilizations clean out of history. Unless something else hits it off its original trajectory after we've launched at it and has no navigation targeting system but still. It seems like a better sentiment to make any form of effort for my potential great great great great great great grandkids or a new breed of dinosaur idfk

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Alan_Smithee_ t1_iujlv41 wrote

What are you talking about??

DART was proof of concept. There wouldn’t be any old technology employed. Given enough advance warning, new interception devices would be built.

Having said that, it wouldn’t be a bad thing to have designs and some advance hardware at the ready.

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NeverFresh t1_iuit2fn wrote

I'm just hoping to get out of this year.

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Kithsander t1_iuk6nwn wrote

Meh. I’m good. If y’all want to pull this thing over and let me out that’d be swell.

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Gregoriel9 t1_iuiypx7 wrote

Either that, the asteroid is closer than we thought, or advancements in medical technology accelerate to the point of biologically immortalizing humanity within a few decades.

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rashnull t1_iuj2l4j wrote

Good to know! Can’t wait to be done with this shithole planet and move on to the next plane!

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sandman8223 t1_iuk2gs1 wrote

The dinosaurs thought they had time and look what happened

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TheMuffStufff t1_iukbaiu wrote

Thanks for the NY reference. Def put it into perspective lol

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Craptcha t1_iujoewt wrote

Went to Chixculub, didn’t see any crater. Fake news.

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vester71 t1_iuin3pg wrote

I guess we now know why they did that test crashing something into a benign asteroid seeing if they could move it.

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gaybraham-lincoln t1_iuivu7r wrote

Yeah this was always the reason when NASA suddenly out of left field had a random interest in adjusting the course of asteroids

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Shadowmant t1_iuiy8m5 wrote

If they were really serious they’d hire professional drillers.

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Yttrical t1_iuiz3uq wrote

It’s well know fact that NASA knows jack about drilling.

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steveg t1_iuk1ils wrote

These nerds need to bring in a rag tag group of attractive misfits if they want any chance of doing this.

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YouandWhoseArmy t1_iujj3ax wrote

Many people think impacts are more common than we are lead to believe. (Thinks 10s of thousand of years instead of millions)

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Rod_SerlingNarration t1_iuiq23o wrote

Picture if you will - an interplanetary game of hide-and-seek. A high stakes cavalcade of calamity on a collision course with destruction.

Tonight we’ll witness what happens when the sun’s beams only serve to illuminate obfuscation.

Close your eyes and count down from 100 - because the game is about to begin in…The Twilight Zone.

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tlm94 t1_iuiwz1v wrote

Wow, I got goosebumps reading that in his voice.

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curleywind511 t1_iuirizg wrote

Finally some good news

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EveniAstrid t1_iuixd0q wrote

You know what? At this point let's just let it crash. Those who have the means will be able to escape it and those of us who don't will be happy to be rid of the misery.

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oilfeather t1_iuis9d7 wrote

Marco Inaros approves.

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LegitimateGift1792 t1_iuiulzi wrote

Nice. Would also give points for a reference to Centauri mass drivers from the conquest of the Narn.

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oilfeather t1_iuiuxcp wrote

SHHHH! The Vorlons might hear!

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LegitimateGift1792 t1_iuivhps wrote

LOL. Both instances show how easy it is to attach a foreign world and makes me laugh when Sci Fi shows aliens who travelled across the galaxy to get waster their time landing and taking us on head to head. They could easily sit out in the asteroid belt and push rocks at us. But that would make a very short movie.

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Kowno t1_iujd9ni wrote

Beltalowda gon make the innas pay!

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aecarol1 t1_iuiwon0 wrote

This is a serious issue. Not this specific asteroid in our lifetimes, but the idea that there are orbits that are mostly sunward and are hard to see asteroids in. It's a bit of a blind-spot from the vantage point of the Earth.

There was a mission planned a while back that would orbit the sun inside the orbit of Venus and look outward for Earth crossing asteroids. The idea was that being closer to the sun, most of the interesting asteroids would be well illuminated and easier to spot. I have no idea the status of this mission or if it's going to eventually fly.

When looking at the same asteroids from Earth, they are close enough to the sun that they are hard to see.

tl;dr asteroids that spend a lot of time close to the sun are hard to discover because of solar glare. Putting a probe closer to the sun looking "outward" may help find more of them.

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Abalone_Gonads t1_iujpile wrote

I love that we’re hearing about this from a gadget blog, instead of The Space Force and NASA. It’s like reading about the Ukraine war in Better Homes and Gardens or Southern Living.

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JackWasabe t1_iuitvjq wrote

Good thing we already developed a counter measure.

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KitchenNazi t1_iuiuq69 wrote

That's why I always look at the sun with my telescope at night. No glare!

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KerouacsGirlfriend t1_iuixkhg wrote

Why they keep teasing us with “potential” planet killers. Do it already, space. DOOOO EEEET.

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Uristqwerty t1_iuk8e35 wrote

Sadly, the planet will live on. It turns out geocide is a very tricky business, as the last serious attempt wasn't nearly powerful enough to overcome gravity, and the ol' hunk of iron merely gained a new moon from the ordeal rather than joining Pluto in the no-longer-a-planet club.

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Alan_Smithee_ t1_iujli8a wrote

We are blind to virtually all of the asteroids coming from the sun’s direction, which is why we need a space-based detection network.

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Picnut t1_iuj0eaq wrote

Well thank goodness, now we don’t have to worry about the climate

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Muhala69 t1_iuiun62 wrote

Why don’t they just wait until the sun sets the get a better view? /s

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Jaggoff81 t1_iuju16r wrote

So that’s why they hit the other asteroid with that satellite…. Practice… It’s all coming together

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theoneronin t1_iujunfh wrote

“The sun was in my eye, Coach.”

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plaidravioli t1_iujec6r wrote

We’re all gonna die!!! Eventually.

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AzulMage2020 t1_iuinbnc wrote

10th article about this . Sure hope Ron Perlman isn't busy.

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dbhathcock t1_iuisdpt wrote

If it is hiding, does that mean the asteroid is actually alive?

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Justme100001 t1_iuisvtu wrote

As if Halloween is not scary enough. Can't this wait untill Christmas ?

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doge4life81 t1_iuix2c5 wrote

Well I'll be dipped in shit. Probably a hot fudge sundae, but on a Tuesday!

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DENelson83 t1_iuj7f8a wrote

It might be easier to spot such asteroids with an IR telescope at Sun-Earth L₄.

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Ok-Worker5125 t1_iuji28z wrote

Now we are about to be killed by a asteroid that read miyamoto musashis book… great

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Your_Daddy_ t1_iuj3bgs wrote

Aw shit - Planet 9!

My brother isn't crazy after all!

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talonredwing t1_iuix7ib wrote

Note how they did the test first and THEN told everyone of the potentially lethal asteroid

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GooglyIce t1_iuja8xn wrote

If I’m getting this right we would be wise to send a survey probe up to the one that’s potentially harmful and if we can’t seem to detect if there’s any minerals or elements on it worth harvesting and if matching its’ orbit is even an option, the next thing to do would be to either mine it or collide with it to push it off course. At the very least before Kessler syndrome kicks in and locking ourselves out of near-earth orbital access. Until then, another wake up call to remind us that we need to be mindful of what’s out there.

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[deleted] t1_iujices wrote

I was told by nasa last year they scanned and we were good for like 200 years. I knew they were being egotistical.

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PhoenixReborn t1_iujjasc wrote

Based on their observations, this won't be a threat for a couple thousand years, not 200.

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winkbean t1_iuk3km3 wrote

These scientists have been looking at the stars and space for how long now, thousands of years all to together. Just seeing this now. Let me guess its shaped like a jack-o-lantern.

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mtsai t1_iuiz86u wrote

let me guess its going to pass us within a few million miles. but somehow thats close enough to worry about it. not even going to bother reading this.

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900pumpchump t1_iuis63r wrote

Good things bill gates is gonna spray the sky to block out the sun, then we won’t be able to see anything so we won’t have to worry about it

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