by Matt
28. July 2010 10:37
Remember the movie Armageddon where Bruce Willis and Ben Afleck save the world from a massive asteroid? Who can forget Liv Tyler right? :)
So apparently there is an asteroid that is headed towards earth that might cause some serious destruction. Some estimates say that it could make a crater the size of say… London. I haven’t been to London but it seems like that would be a pretty big impact!
Panic! Run! Hide! OK not really. It won’t get here until 2182… if it does get here. There’s a 1 in a 1000 chance of impact.
The name of the asteroid is 1999 RQ36. In all seriousness, NASA needs to hire some creative namers. Look what the hurricane naming has done for the meteorological world! People talk about Katrina and Andrew and everyone knows what they are talking about. 1999 RQ36? Really?
Anyway, I found a way cool simulator at NASA. Takes a little bit of playing with to get the controls to work but you can fast forward to 2182 by changing the drop down to “1 year” then hitting play for a bit. When you get to about 2180 pause it and switch it to “1 day” then hit play and let it go through to about September of 2182.
Way cool stuff!
JPL Small-Body Database Browser