Asteroid

[MikeGER]

...for those Astronomy Grogs who like to simulate asteroid impacts with free parameter-set to enter (there are meaningful proposals to pick from a list too) and see the resulting effects calculated and displayed in a nice internet user interface 

here's the link:  http://www.purdue.edu/impactearth/

[Shelldrake]

Apparently the meteor (now believed to have been between 7000 and 10000 tonnes) was one of the Apollo asteroids.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21579422

[MikeGER]

very interesting, THX  :)

btw: there are two probably remarkable comet events scheduled for this year:

middle of march comet  Pornstars Panstarrs  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C/2011_L4
expected magnitude 1m at 3/10

and the comet Ison  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C/2012_S1  in Nov. could be bright enuf to bee visible at day like the full Moon but close to the sun ....if Ison suvives his perihelion 

[Mr. Bigglesworth]

"Which would be cool, in all sorts of ways. For a start, it should be simply spectacular. Given the unusual speed of the comet (which is moving so fast that it may well be coming from outside the solar system—cool upon cool) and the fact that it is travelling the wrong way round the sun, from a planet's point of view, Mr Plait estimates that its impact should yield a blast equivalent to that of a billion megatons of TNT. It would be an event on the same sort of scale as the impact that drove the dinosaurs extinct 65m years ago. If it really is that big, and if the comet were to hit the side of Mars facing Earth (it seems that it might do, but it might also hit the far side), then the blast could well be visible to the naked eye, even in daylight."

http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2013/02/comet-headed-mars

Better there than here I say.

[Barthheart]

^That is extremely cool! Thanks fer posting it.

[GDS_Starfury]

its cool until the splash debris hit earth.

[Barthheart]

Even that will be cool as the debris will likely be fairly small.

[GDS_Starfury]

define what you think small is.
that rock in Russia was only the size of a bus.

[Staggerwing]

Damn. Reminds me of the Shoemaker-Levy-9 Comet-Train of Doom piling into Jupiter.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_Shoemaker%E2%80%93Levy_9

Tracing back the comet's orbital motion revealed that it had been orbiting Jupiter for some time. It seems most likely that it was captured from a solar orbit in the early 1970s, although the capture may have occurred as early as the mid-1960s.[6] Several other observers found images of the comet in precovery images obtained before March 24, including Kin Endate from a photograph exposed on March 15, S. Otomo on March 17, and a team led by Eleanor Helin from images on March 19.[7] No precovery images dating back to earlier than March 1993 have been found. Before the comet was captured by Jupiter, it was probably a short-period comet with an aphelion just inside Jupiter's orbit, and a perihelion interior to the asteroid belt.[8]

Just a reminder that it doesn't always take millions of years for that all-things-astronomical-keep-whizzing-along-in-their-predestined-patterns to take a Crazy-Ivan in the blink of a cosmic eye.

[MikeGER]

Mr. Bigglesworth THX for the head-up   8)

i surly will keep track of that :)

(the latest updates on "close-approach data" will be found here: 
at the bottom at
http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=C%2F2013%20A1%20;orb=0;cov=0;log=0;cad=1#cad  )

[Barthheart]

define what you think small is.
that rock in Russia was only the size of a bus.

Yeah that's about the size I mean.

[Longdan]

define what you think small is.
that rock in Russia was only the size of a bus.

Should be okay as long as it hits Iran?

[Boggit]

Only if you tighten the nuts ;)

Hopefully that's not also your wife's preferred way of coaxing you round to her way of thinking? ;) ;D

[bob48]

As long as she uses spring washers and a good squirt of WD40..........

[Windigo]

if the comet hits Mars, then the point of finding water on Mars will be moot ... seeing as comets are considered dirty snowballs