Asteroid aiming to hit Mars in January 2008

G'day theprogamer, The asteroid watch is a great thing except, there is nothing we can do about it at the moment if one is found to be coming at us. We need several years advance warning in order to have a think about what we are going to do about it. If one gets found tomorrow that will hit us in a week, all we can do is kiss our backsides. Must ask about your handle, do you write software for games or play them madly?

Just checked my sources on the Asteroid. Chances of impact in January have increased from 1 in 75 to 1 in 25. I bites me finger nails, oooooooeeee. A month ago it was 1 in 3000.

I play them but I also write my own rpgs on occasion. I also do a ton of other things as hobbies.

It is a worry that the asteroid was not spotted earlier, this is a very good indication that one or two or three telescopic searches are nowhere near what is in fact required to do the job, we are kidding ourselves. Something that size getting all the way through our atmosphere would certainly make a whopping big bang and a whole to match. Even if it didn't get all the way through to the ground, it would be much the same as the Tunguska event, or if you like, 50 to 150 megatons.

One of the reasons it didn't get spotted earlier was it made its approach to Earth with the Sun behind it. If we point a telescope at the Sun we can't see anything else, it's too bright and blinding.

G'day mipen2006, nice to see your avatar grace my pages again mate. Glad I helped fill in the missing bits there. I am still in awe at the amount of robots eyes we humans have plastered across the solar system. I do love it.

Hi, nice to hear from you munhozmib. It would be a fitting follow up to the comet that hit Jupiter, the impact scars from that comet were the same size as the Earth. The asteroid appears to be a long time member of our own Solar system. Now, you bring me to something that actually requires a seperate post, Orphaned bodies from other star systems. In our own solar system, many objects have had their orbits altered from a close encounter with another object. Some of these objects are ejected from our solar system, never to return. If every star system that developed planets has done the same, then there MUST be billions of orphaned bodies in our own galaxy no longer gravitationally attached to a star system. One of them could just cruise into our solar system, wreak havoc, and all at not solar system velocities, ha, slow compared to what a galactic orphan might be travelling at. We didn't see 2007 WD7 until after it passed us, what hope have we got against a galactic orphan? Regards the cells going to Mars after hitching a ride on a rock, or the other way around. One of those meteorites that had a thing in it that looked a bit like a small multi celled organism, now seems like it might really be a Martian fossil, the reason is, Lifeforms on Earth tend to absorb lighter carbon isotopes than the heavier ones, the natural ratios are altered by living things, usually there is more carbon12 in living things or their remains than non-living things, the fossil thingy in the Martian rock has been found to contain more carbon12 than it should. This indicates it was once a living thing. Also, the Earth has been struck a few times since life has been here, by large impactors that would have hurled a lot of material into space, never to return, I believe our solar system has already been contaminated by rocks and whatever was in or on them. If rocks from Mars can land on Earth and be found then the reverse must also be true for Mars. One day, someone is going to find a very strange meteorite, it will have come from the planet Earth, it will have come home. Cheers, K.

Hello! You really have a lot of knowleadge about the subject. I know little about this, really. Things like the Carbon12 I've never heard before. I just get curious about Scientific subjects like this one. I believe that we'll all find out what happens when the asteroid hits Mars, IF it does hits Mars. Science can learn a lot from it.

Hello acatantan, what you say is a possibility, if the asteroid strikes one of the small moons of Mars, a shower of rocks and debris could be on their to Earth.