This asteroid is going to come closer to the earth than the moon and some of our satellites on 15/2/13. Scientists calculate it will miss us but why do people have blind faith? There is no guarantee that the asteroid will miss us. Is anybody else worried about this?
SpartanCanuck
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Not really. It's not like mathematics and physics are arbitrary, or like asteroids just change their path by magic. Accepting that it will miss us requires no faith, only a bit of scientific literacy. It actually takes faith to presume that there is some means for it to significantly alter its path between now and 15/2/13.
It's also only 45 meters across. Even in the event of a collision, that's hardly a dinosaur-killer.
Anonymous
Because it is too small. 45 meters. most of it will burn up.
Small asteroid 2012 DA14 will make an extremely close approach on February 15, 2013. It will pass by Earth at distance of about 27,000 km (17,000 miles/no closer than 0.000181 AU) from the center of the Earth; within about 3.5 Earth radii of the Earth’s surface.
This near-Earth asteroid was discovered on February 22, 2012 by LaSagra Observatory in the mountains of Andalusia in southern Spain. Asteroid 2012 DA14 is thought to be about 45 meters in diameter and his estimated mass about 130,000 metric tons.
Paula
The orbit has been compoted.
It will miss earth by about 35,000 km (3 diameters).
If it hit there would be a small scale explosion.
It is only 45 meters in diameter.
It would cause a blast similar to the Tungusta event of 1908.
The orbit of DA14 is very similar to that of earth, but it is tilted to the plane of the earth's orbit. It makes one orbit of the sun in slightly more than 1 year.
Presumably it has bee miising the earth for thousands of years, and it will go on missing us.
?
Actually there is a guarantee that it will miss us. It is pretty easy to figure out an object's orbit. Even if it did hit though, it's a small one. Who cares. Unless it lands basically on you, you'll be fine. Why the Chicken Little attitude?
Faesson
Asteroids pass by very closely ALL THE FREAKING TIME. Usually, at least in the past, we didn't even know they were there until the already passed by. As astronomers, do you think we immediately called CNN and told them "Dudes, we NEARLY got hit!"? Of course not.