Asteroid Florence, one of millions of pieces of rocky, primordial space debris that have been zipping around our solar system for a few billion years, is going to pass really, really close to Earth tomorrow. Where's Harry Stamper and his merry band of oil drillers when you need them?
And by "really, really close" I mean about 4 million miles. Which seems like a lot of distance if you and the family have just piled into the Griswold Family Truckster for a trip to Wally World -- if Walley World were on another continent and there was a land bridge to Siberia still in existence, that is -- but it's actually just around the corner, in terms of space distances.
Our planet travels through space at about 8 miles every second. That's fast. That also means we easily cover 4 million miles in less than a week. So if we'd been off in any meaningful way as to the three-mile-wide Florence's trajectory or path it could have been Lucifer's Hammer (though that was a comet that had broken apart or calved, which this asteroid wouldn't necessarily do) all over again and we can just go ahead and cancel the Neil Diamond Holiday Special on ABC right now. Consider that the dinosaur-killing asteroid that darkened Earth for years from the ejecta it sent up into the atmosphere (changing planetary albedo greatly) was only about six-miles across. Florence would sting us just a little bit, in other words.
At any rate, all the NASA science boffins have been tracking Florence for a couple of days now, mostly using ground-based radar, and they say that this is the closest the asteroid has come to us since 1890 and that it won't approach as closely again until about the year 2500. When either a Kennedy, a Bush, a Clinton, a Trump or an Obama will no doubt be running again. ;-)
By the way, we really only learned about Florence's existence in 1981. Ever wonder how many other near-Earth objects there are out there, passing agonizingly near to us?
What time will Asteroid Florence 3122 SKIM Earth? | Science | News | Express.co.uk
"Politics is just show business for ugly people."
And by "really, really close" I mean about 4 million miles. Which seems like a lot of distance if you and the family have just piled into the Griswold Family Truckster for a trip to Wally World -- if Walley World were on another continent and there was a land bridge to Siberia still in existence, that is -- but it's actually just around the corner, in terms of space distances.
Our planet travels through space at about 8 miles every second. That's fast. That also means we easily cover 4 million miles in less than a week. So if we'd been off in any meaningful way as to the three-mile-wide Florence's trajectory or path it could have been Lucifer's Hammer (though that was a comet that had broken apart or calved, which this asteroid wouldn't necessarily do) all over again and we can just go ahead and cancel the Neil Diamond Holiday Special on ABC right now. Consider that the dinosaur-killing asteroid that darkened Earth for years from the ejecta it sent up into the atmosphere (changing planetary albedo greatly) was only about six-miles across. Florence would sting us just a little bit, in other words.
At any rate, all the NASA science boffins have been tracking Florence for a couple of days now, mostly using ground-based radar, and they say that this is the closest the asteroid has come to us since 1890 and that it won't approach as closely again until about the year 2500. When either a Kennedy, a Bush, a Clinton, a Trump or an Obama will no doubt be running again. ;-)
By the way, we really only learned about Florence's existence in 1981. Ever wonder how many other near-Earth objects there are out there, passing agonizingly near to us?
What time will Asteroid Florence 3122 SKIM Earth? | Science | News | Express.co.uk
"Politics is just show business for ugly people."