Another rock will fly past the Earth today, killing no one.
Chicken Little report: Another rock will fly past the Earth today, killing no one.
The 33-foot-wide (10 meters) near-Earth asteroid 2014 EC will come within 34,550 miles (55,600 kilometers) of Earth’s surface this evening (March 6) — just 14 percent of the distance between our planet and the moon, which is about 239,000 miles (385,000 km) on average.
The key quote, however, is this:
Such back-to-back flybys are pretty special, though they can’t exactly be called rare events, [JPL scientist Don] Yeomans said. “For small asteroids, one would expect a flyby of the Earth, to within the moon’s distance, about every two weeks,” he said.
In other words, these flybys happen a lot, with no consequences.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
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Chicken Little report: Another rock will fly past the Earth today, killing no one.
The 33-foot-wide (10 meters) near-Earth asteroid 2014 EC will come within 34,550 miles (55,600 kilometers) of Earth’s surface this evening (March 6) — just 14 percent of the distance between our planet and the moon, which is about 239,000 miles (385,000 km) on average.
The key quote, however, is this:
Such back-to-back flybys are pretty special, though they can’t exactly be called rare events, [JPL scientist Don] Yeomans said. “For small asteroids, one would expect a flyby of the Earth, to within the moon’s distance, about every two weeks,” he said.
In other words, these flybys happen a lot, with no consequences.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
It seems we’re living in a sensationalist era as far as news & weather reporting go. I can’t tell you how annoyed I am that we name winter storms now – and not just extreme blizzards, but even just moderate snow events. The last one that came thru Chicago dumped a whole (HORRORS ! !) 4″ – BFD ! !
It might not have hit us but it does emphasize that space isn’t empty. We live in a hostile celestial environment.
Our ability to actually intercept one will not advance until we are actually hit by one that causes loss of life and significant damage to an urban area.
No one cares much about farmer Phill and his cows if they get hit. But drop one on Miami and watch the cash flow into NASA to protect us.
One *good* thing about these higher rates of asteroid passage is that they indicate that the number of small temporary moons of Earth that wander into and out of fuzzy orbits in and near Cislunar Space may be larger than thought so far. If so, then a detection system for them, like the Arkyd 100 could yield multiple targets each year that have enough total mass to jumpstart one or more projects on the Moon, through an EML-1 staging point and manufacturing center.
This affect could be multiplied by the work being done at CalTech by Dr. Julia Greer and her Architectured Materials Team.
http://www.jrgreer.caltech.edu/home.php
They are producing nano-structured trusses that have hollow truss members a few microns long and a few nanometers thick, with strength equal to an equivalent volume of solid metal, or of Sapphire (Al2O8, IIRC). They are now reporting 100/1 ratios with equivalent solids. Note that members small enough to have few to no crystal imperfections can exhibit not only greater strength per kilo of mass, but in the case of Sapphire, the truss can be compressed up to 50%, and it returns to its former shape after compression is removed. Not only would this make for incredibly low mass spaceships but it can magnify the number of projects doable with the mass obtained from Earth’s temporary moons.
Start a lunar surface base, with landers built at EML-1 from “temporary moon” material, using these nano-structured trusses, and you would still have enough mass to start building the equipment for harvesting farther Near Earth Asteroids. You might even have enough to start a base on the surface of Mar’s moon, Phobos, which could start doing the same things there, including landers for Mars. If those asteroid flyby rates are high enough for these smaller objects that have a low enough delta-v to be captured for an average of 10 months, then they might provide a far less capital intensive bootstrap into harvesting asteroids and settling the Solar System.