On Friday, Feb. 15, asteroid 2012 DA14 will pass within 17,200 miles -- or 15 minutes -- of Earth, according to scientist Bill Nye.

While the asteroid, which Nye said is comparable in size to the one responsible for the 1908 Tunguska event, is expected to pass harmlessly by, Nye said it is a very close shave relatively speaking.

"This one will miss us by about 15 minutes," Nye explained. "Fifteen minutes difference and that's it."

If it were not for those 15 minutes, life for millions of people could end.

"If such a meteor were to hit Atlanta or New York City or Boston, that would be it for those municipalities," Nye said. As much as 1,200 square miles would be destroyed, Nye added.

According to Nye, there are approximately 100,000 "Earth-crossing" asteroids and, for the first time in human history, the possibility exists that something could be done should one threaten Earth.

"It is something that we as humans all over the world ought to get involved in," he said.

Will we feel the breeze?

Cannibal Reign

It might hit a satellite or two.

"There are loads of them but you're talking about a very big area. It would be very unlucky if a satellite was hit. The asteroid is more likely to hit some space junk, but most of this is only about a centimetre across and the impact won't even be noticed," said Brown. Through binoculars, the object should be visible as a tiny dot of light crossing the sky.

[Edited 2/13/13 13:30pm]

I think Nye's pulling things out of thin air. He also said global warming is causing the asteroids. HA!

[Edited 2/13/13 14:05pm]

Yeah I guess I should've gotten the official NASA report as usual. I don't keep up with his personal beliefs, he's just the science guy I use to watch on tv as far as I'm concerned, pretty well respected in the science community, good enough for me.

"This is a record-setting close approach," says Don Yeomans of NASA's Near Earth Object Program at JPL. "Since regular sky surveys began in the 1990s, we've never seen an object this big get so close to Earth."

I wanna see it, but I don't know the time so I can make the trip to Rueben H., I guess I could call them.

Though no connection with the asteroid has been made (at least, not yet), it looks like a meteor did zip thru the skies over Russia.

http://www.reuters.com/ar...5Z20130215

[Edited 2/15/13 2:15am]

Visionnaire said:

Though no connection with the asteroid has been made (at least, not yet), it looks like a meteor did zip thru the skies over Russia.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/15/us-russia-meteorite-idUSBRE91E05Z20130215

[Edited 2/15/13 1:55am]

Loads of vids on youtube. 500 injured by flying glass caused by the sonic boom. Amazing stuff.

^Yeah, I edited in a different video since I just noticed that date on that first one seems wrong.

Saw the story about the Russian meteorite.

Can't wait for the big one.

[Edited 2/15/13 4:20am]

noimageatall said:

Saw the story about the Russian meteorite.

Can't wait for the big one.

[Edited 2/15/13 4:20am]

Thing is, meteor showers have been happening for a while and occasionally will hit certain places in Earth. Guess most of them just wound up in Russia. See when people go on about asteroids hitting Earth or close to hitting it, they have to be certain about which areas it's gonna hit. A broad generalization of such a thing makes you wonder if all the world (or half of it) would be blown to smithreens (sp?) by such an event. But looking at footage of it is fascinating, scary and beautiful at the same time.

Marrk said:

Visionnaire said:

Though no connection with the asteroid has been made (at least, not yet), it looks like a meteor did zip thru the skies over Russia.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/15/us-russia-meteorite-idUSBRE91E05Z20130215

[Edited 2/15/13 1:55am]

Loads of vids on youtube. 500 injured by flying glass caused by the sonic boom. Amazing stuff.

this news gave me the chills.. i was 35000 ft up all over russia yesterday! a plane would have to be very unlucky to be hit, but still makes ya bloody think

noimageatall said:

Saw the story about the Russian meteorite.

Can't wait for the big one.

[Edited 2/15/13 4:20am]

I saw some of the picture of those. Awesome. Though I am sorry some people got hurt from glas and stuff, but it still is an awesome thing to see from time to time.

North Americans won’t have nearly as good a view of the asteroid, because night won’t fall for us until after it has passed closest approach. Still, veteran amateur astronomers with decent sized telescopes might have a shot at it from 7 p.m. EST and 10 p.m. EST on on February 15. It’ll be a challenge. For more, see this article on the asteroid f...cope.com. Map is a still from a NASA video.

Eh, I won't get to see it personal, that'll be 10pm my time and I don't have that good of a telescope.

excited said:

Marrk said:

Loads of vids on youtube. 500 injured by flying glass caused by the sonic boom. Amazing stuff.

this news gave me the chills.. i was 35000 ft up all over russia yesterday! a plane would have to be very unlucky to be hit, but still makes ya bloody think

A rock from outerspace that hits an airplane?!

What are the odds?

Good that you'r save, though.

Amazing. Wishing those people who were hit well.

House committee to hold hearing on asteroid threat
By Jonathan Easley - 02/15/13 12:07 PM ET

The House Science, Space and Technology Committee will hold a hearing on how to “better identify and address asteroids that pose a potential threat to Earth,” Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) said in a statement on Friday.

The announcement comes after a meteorite exploded in a massive blast above Siberia that damaged buildings, houses and cars and injured about 1,000 people on Friday.

"The light was so intense that it completely illuminated the courtyard of our apartment block," said Sergei Zakharov, head of the Russian Geographical Society in Chelyabinsk, according to The Wall Street Journal. "The sound, the shock wave came around six minutes later. No one could understand what had happened. I'd compare it to the explosion of a large flare bomb."

The blast was unrelated to another rare meteorological event on Friday — a 150-foot-long asteroid passed within 17,000 miles of Earth. It’s the closest encounter of its kind on record, passing within the orbit of many man-made satellites.

“Today’s events are a stark reminder of the need to invest in space science,” Smith said. “Asteroid 2012 DA14 passed just 17,000 miles from Earth, less than the distance of a round trip from New York to Sydney. And this morning, a much smaller meteorite hit near the Russian city of Chelyabinsk, damaging buildings and injuring hundreds."

"Developing technology and research that enable us to track objects like Asteroid 2012 DA14 is critical to our future," Smith said. "We should continue to invest in systems that identify threatening asteroids and develop contingencies, if needed, to change the course of an asteroid headed toward Earth.”

I was just reading that there was allegedly another meteorite that exploded over Cuba sometime in the last 24-48 hours.

mjforever said:

RobotDevil said:

I was just reading that there was allegedly another meteorite that exploded over Cuba sometime in the last 24-48 hours.

You think they tell it by now if it was true...

Timmy84 said:

RobotDevil said:

I was just reading that there was allegedly another meteorite that exploded over Cuba sometime in the last 24-48 hours.

You think they tell it by now if it was true...

word

One day humans will go the way of the dinosaurs.

meteorite showers r what may destroy the earth ~ and all this seems to b the begining

dJJ said:

excited said:

this news gave me the chills.. i was 35000 ft up all over russia yesterday! a plane would have to be very unlucky to be hit, but still makes ya bloody think

A rock from outerspace that hits an airplane?!

What are the odds?

Good that you'r save, though.

it's a busy flight corridor,. just looking at what the boom did to those buildings i'm suprised no aircraft were affected! yeah i'm glad i'm safe too!

uPtoWnNY said:

One day humans will go the way of the dinosaurs.

Very possible.

We have done very little to colonize other planets within our own solar system (or even our own moon), so a big enough rock could take us all out.

I'm not even sure our half dozen folks in space can even get back if they needed to with short notice.

Fireball at 4:35, the shock wave from the meteor blowing up in the atmosphere~06:58

uPtoWnNY said:

One day humans will go the way of the dinosaurs.

That is true. George Carlin said it best about that by the way. The planet will be here but we will soon evaporate. Maybe not in our lifetimes but it will happen. Question is when?