domingo, 17 de fevereiro de 2013

February, 15. Asteroid Skims Past Earth In Record Near-Miss

A huge space rock harmlessly flies closer to the Earth than at any other time on record - at a speed of 17,640mph.

 
 
 
 

At 143,000 tons, the "city killer" DA14 is nowhere near as big as the six-mile-wide (10km) object widely believed to have brought about the extinction of the dinosaurs, but it is large enough to have wiped out an area the size of London had it struck.
 
But while it may have been visible as a tiny white dot to those using binoculars - weather permitting - scientists had said there was no chance it would hit Earth.
Sky News
 
Visible in Portugal between 19.30 and 20.00 o'clock



1 comentário:

miguel disse...

Waw, i can't believe that something like that could happen this close to earth without me even noticing it!

I had no idea this happened, but i am amazed and even a bit frightened.

If this space rock had actually hit earth i can't imagine the damage that it could cause. I'll admit if it had struck Earth the odds were that it would hit an uninhabited area (since only our oceans alone occupy seventy per cent of our planet)but if it didn't and it struck a big city it could have caused some damage not only demografic but also economical and psychological. I say psychological because almost every catastrofic event damages the people psychologically, we just have to look at some of the previous events (like 9/11 for example), it would affect us economically since every big city has an important role in the economical balance of the world. However i believe that the demografic damage would be minimal, since, with the scientists' work, i believe it would be possible to predict the colision months before it happened and it would be possible to evacuate the area affected by the impact.


I have to say i am impressed at how much scientists are able to discover beforehand.
Not that long ago, men looked up at the sky during starry nights wondering what was up there... and now, with the tecnological advance, it's possible to predict and analyse these events.

Miguel Miranda nº24 10B