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Hacky McAxe

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An asteroid three times the size of a football field is speeding up as it heads towards Earth, new evidence has revealed.

Researchers at the University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy have found the Apophis asteroid — named after the Egyptian god of chaos — has accelerated due to something known as the Yarkovsky effect.

Scientists claim the phenomenon increases the possibility Apophis will make impact with Earth in 2068; an event previously thought "impossible".

The asteroid is being pushed around by sunlight. Yarkovsky acceleration comes into play when thermal radiation is no longer uniform, meaning some parts of the space-rock heat up faster than others.

"The new observations we obtained with the Subaru telescope earlier this year were good enough to reveal the Yarkovsky acceleration of Apophis," astronomer Dave Tholen said in a press release.

"They show that the asteroid is drifting away from a purely gravitational orbit by about 170 metres per year, which is enough to keep the 2068 impact scenario in play."
Interesting fact about asteroids.

The reason earth has survived so long is because of Jupiter. It's so large that its gravitational pull steers asteroids away from earth.

But we're not sure why so many asteroids keep coming toward earth before Jupiter redirects them. Many believe that there is something just outside our solar system that we can't see that is catapulting asteroids toward us. It's most likely a very large planet like Jupiter.

So effectively there's a supermassive dark planet throwing asteroids at us, and a supermassive light planet protecting us. Although the dark one could also be a black hole, or something else.
 

Hacky McAxe

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I'm sure they will have lasers that will demolish the asteroid by 2068 :p
Won't work. There has been a lot of research into this and there's several programs ubderway to deal with giant asteroids.

Problem with shooting an asteroid with lasers is that it takes a massive amount of energy. The most powerful laser we have on earth fired for 0.000001 seconds uses more energy than all of Europe uses in a day. And if fired at the moon it would barely leave a mark.

The other idea people have is a nuke like Armageddon. Problem with that is that if it's big enough to wipe us out then we need a warhead the size of Australia to blow it up, and if you blow up an asteroid then it turns from one massive rock into millions of large rocks. Effectively it would he a shotgun blast that would shred earth.

There are other good ideas though. Basically you want to redirect it slightly so it avoids earth. So you get a rocket, land it on a smaller (but still very large) asteroid and fire the rocket to redirect it near the large asteroid. You don't want it to make impact as that won't help much. You want them to orbit each other then the gravitational pull of the smaller asteroid will drag the larger asteroid slightly off angle so it misses earth.
 

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Interesting fact about asteroids.

The reason earth has survived so long is because of Jupiter. It's so large that its gravitational pull steers asteroids away from earth.
I remember reading about this theory when Shoemaker Levy 9 (1994) first got ripped apart by Jupiter and then eventually swallowed in a series of Earth sized explosions on it's next orbit. The Hubble pics from those hits were stunning. If anyone is interested in seeing them - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_Shoemaker–Levy_9

But we're not sure why so many asteroids keep coming toward earth before Jupiter redirects them. Many believe that there is something just outside our solar system that we can't see that is catapulting asteroids toward us. It's most likely a very large planet like Jupiter.

So effectively there's a supermassive dark planet throwing asteroids at us, and a supermassive light planet protecting us. Although the dark one could also be a black hole, or something else.
Yeah NASA has found a few of those rogue planets - https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/hubble-captures-blistering-pitch-black-planet

There is just so much we are yet to understand about how this Universe was formed.
 

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Won't work. There has been a lot of research into this and there's several programs ubderway to deal with giant asteroids.

Problem with shooting an asteroid with lasers is that it takes a massive amount of energy. The most powerful laser we have on earth fired for 0.000001 seconds uses more energy than all of Europe uses in a day. And if fired at the moon it would barely leave a mark.

The other idea people have is a nuke like Armageddon. Problem with that is that if it's big enough to wipe us out then we need a warhead the size of Australia to blow it up, and if you blow up an asteroid then it turns from one massive rock into millions of large rocks. Effectively it would he a shotgun blast that would shred earth.

There are other good ideas though. Basically you want to redirect it slightly so it avoids earth. So you get a rocket, land it on a smaller (but still very large) asteroid and fire the rocket to redirect it near the large asteroid. You don't want it to make impact as that won't help much. You want them to orbit each other then the gravitational pull of the smaller asteroid will drag the larger asteroid slightly off angle so it misses earth.
Yup avoidance is the best policy and since we can't move the Earth (no lever big enough...yet), we have to move the bullet.
 

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1604027450710.png


Speeding through space is a heavy and rare metal asteroid worth more than the world's entire economy.

Space agency NASA this week provided a closer look at the rare 226 kilometre space rock, dubbed "16 Psyche", using images snapped by its Hubble telescope.

According to a study published in the Planetary Science Journal on Monday, the asteroid could be made entirely of nickel and iron; two metals which also form the majority of the Earth's core.

If true, the asteroid would have an estimated worth of USD$10,000 quadrillion ($10,000,000,000,000,000,000). That is 10,000 times more than the global economy's roughly $142 trillion worth in 2019.
 

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Today in History.

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The most powerful nuclear bomb ever made is tested in the Arctic Ocean on October 30, 1961.

The Tsar Bomba was so powerful that Soviet authorities gave the bomber crew dropping it a 50 percent chance of survival.

The detonation created an eight-kilometre wide fireball and a mushroom cloud seven times higher than Mount Everest.

Windowpanes were broken up to 900km away from the blast site.

The flight crew survived the blast.
 

Hacky McAxe

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@Mr 95%

That colour illusion stuff I was pointing out earlier (the two greys looking different even though they were the same), this video explains a lot of it very well. The video is made by the brilliant illusionist Zach King. You'll recognise him from a bunch of adverts including the tic tac averts and the rice bubbles adverts

 

Mr 95%

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@Mr 95%

That colour illusion stuff I was pointing out earlier (the two greys looking different even though they were the same), this video explains a lot of it very well. The video is made by the brilliant illusionist Zach King. You'll recognise him from a bunch of adverts including the tic tac averts and the rice bubbles adverts

Hacky that was brilliantly crazy..the coloured room and duck freaked me out. Amazing the tricks our eyes and brain plays..
 

Mr 95%

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You think that's freaky, try this

Another excellent video..this one I could deal with.. The room getting smaller (or bigger depending on the way you look at it) reminds of that scene in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory when they walked down the corridor it got smaller.. Superb stuff!
 

Hacky McAxe

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If anyone is bored and wants to learn a little, World Science University is great. It's just a combination of free seminars held by prominent science professors like Professor Brian Greene.


Greene has the most interesting and well explained lecture on Special Relativity that I've seen. Great if you want your mind blown.

If you don't want to sign up it the website, a lot of the lectures are also on the World Science Festival YouTube channel which sadly only has 620k subscribers. Get more science in ya people.

 

Chris Harding

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Interesting fact about asteroids.

The reason earth has survived so long is because of Jupiter. It's so large that its gravitational pull steers asteroids away from earth.

But we're not sure why so many asteroids keep coming toward earth before Jupiter redirects them. Many believe that there is something just outside our solar system that we can't see that is catapulting asteroids toward us. It's most likely a very large planet like Jupiter.

So effectively there's a supermassive dark planet throwing asteroids at us, and a supermassive light planet protecting us. Although the dark one could also be a black hole, or something else.
Too close for a black hole to exist on the edge of our solar system. Besides, they attract; and don't fling small objects away.

There is a hypothesis that something large might be out in the Oort Cloud region, which might be a planet. It could be on an orbit that takes 20,000 years, which is why we cannot detect it now; but evidence suggests something has affected the orbits of objects on the edge of the solar system. Some have very peculiar orbits in the region of Neptune. Then again, it could be nothing- just an artifact of the early universe. The Oort Cloud is the scrap heap of objects that failed to form into planets - sorry, Pluto fans. But, maybe there is something out there.

We know that asteroids originate there, but some come from deep space as well.

Jupiter once moved closer to the sun, then back out again - probably due to the gravitational effect of Saturn. It is possible that the movement dislodged a planet near Earth and sent it out of the solar system, or to the edge.

Rogue planets are another fascinating subject.
 

Chris Harding

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If anyone is bored and wants to learn a little, World Science University is great. It's just a combination of free seminars held by prominent science professors like Professor Brian Greene.


Greene has the most interesting and well explained lecture on Special Relativity that I've seen. Great if you want your mind blown.

If you don't want to sign up it the website, a lot of the lectures are also on the World Science Festival YouTube channel which sadly only has 620k subscribers. Get more science in ya people.

Cheers,

Neil DeGrasse Tyson's Youtube channel is also interesting to view. Dr. Karl has a great podcast show, as do the Skeptics Guide to the Universe. Australian Sceptics are worth a visit, too.

I also like Skeptoid,com which takes an honest, and in your face, look at myths and conspiracies.
 

Chris Harding

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Another excellent video..this one I could deal with.. The room getting smaller (or bigger depending on the way you look at it) reminds of that scene in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory when they walked down the corridor it got smaller.. Superb stuff!
There used to be a pavilion at Luna Park in Sydney that had rooms like that - things rolling uphill, and strange shapes and distortions, plus the obligatory hall of mirrors.
 

Hacky McAxe

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Too close for a black hole to exist on the edge of our solar system. Besides, they attract; and don't fling small objects away.

There is a hypothesis that something large might be out in the Oort Cloud region, which might be a planet. It could be on an orbit that takes 20,000 years, which is why we cannot detect it now; but evidence suggests something has affected the orbits of objects on the edge of the solar system. Some have very peculiar orbits in the region of Neptune. Then again, it could be nothing- just an artifact of the early universe. The Oort Cloud is the scrap heap of objects that failed to form into planets - sorry, Pluto fans. But, maybe there is something out there.

We know that asteroids originate there, but some come from deep space as well.

Jupiter once moved closer to the sun, then back out again - probably due to the gravitational effect of Saturn. It is possible that the movement dislodged a planet near Earth and sent it out of the solar system, or to the edge.

Rogue planets are another fascinating subject.
Black holes are a little misunderstood. When you get too close to them you get pulled in and the closer you get the closer the more you get pulled in, but that's just because of their mass the same as any object or celestial body. It's just that their mass is compressed to the size of 0.

If our sun became a black hole and earth somehow survived it (which is near impossible) and the sun didn't lose any mass during the process (which is also impossible), then the earth would still orbit the black hole just as it orbits the sun as the mass is the same.

There's obvious problems with that though. Our sun isn't massive enough to become a black hole, it would wipe out the earth as it expanded before it collapsed, it would lose half its mass, and if earth survived then the magnetic fields from the black hole would tear us apart.

But realistically if a planet or small star somehow became a black hole then it could orbit our sun. But if that we're the case then it would be tiny. Really tiny. One team of scientists did the calculations and said that it would have to be the size of a grapefruit. And we don't really know of a way a planet could become a blsck hole without having enough mass. So it's unlikely to be a black hole. More likely a dark planet or something similar.

On the flip side though, we've only found out recently that single star solar systems are rare. Most have 2 to 3 stars. So it's possible we could have a binary star that somehow became a black hole and now orbits us. Possible but not probable.
 

Mr 95%

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There used to be a pavilion at Luna Park in Sydney that had rooms like that - things rolling uphill, and strange shapes and distortions, plus the obligatory hall of mirrors.
Yes! Apparently there was one up in Movie World..a tie in with the Young Einstein movie..that did the same too.. Where everything was on a tilt around you..while the platform you walk on was straight..it made people really disoriented..so that actually lose their balance..
 

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Cheers,

Neil DeGrasse Tyson's Youtube channel is also interesting to view. Dr. Karl has a great podcast show, as do the Skeptics Guide to the Universe. Australian Sceptics are worth a visit, too.

I also like Skeptoid,com which takes an honest, and in your face, look at myths and conspiracies.
All great stuff. Dr Karl also has a podcast called "Shirtloads of Science". I highly recommend it. He basically hosts episodes with professors of Sydney Uni where they explain concepts. Professor Gerraint Lewis has an few of great episodes on black holes and Neutron stars.

Also, if you're looking for light-hearted stuff. Two of my favourite podcasts are The Infinite Monkey Cage with Professor Brian Cox and Robyn Ince. They host a panel type show with scientists and comedians. Very entertaining. Also, The Curious Cases of Rutherford and Fry with Adam Rutherford (Biologist) and Hannah Fry (Mathematician). They get listeners to ask questions then they dig into the science of it. It's really interesting stuff.

There's another podcast that started recently with Dr Eric Lander who worked on the Human Genome Project. It's called "Brave New Planet". Only a few episodes out but each is really interesting. They look into future technologies that can be used for everything from combating Climate change to fighting wars with future drones. It's great stuff.
 

Chris Harding

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Hacky that was brilliantly crazy..the coloured room and duck freaked me out. Amazing the tricks our eyes and brain plays..
Our brain had to cut back on some basics to allow us greater processing power. Our eyesight is imperfect, but good enough to save us from dangerous creatures and find food.

There are gaps, which our brain fills in for us. This is the reason for pareidolia, where we see see images in objects - like Jesus on a piece of toast, and why we can filter out things like spots on a windscreen. Animals like birds can see a greater spectrum of colours; but our perception is good enough for us to be able to detect objects, hunt, and make things. It is also why magicians can fool us with illusions.
 

Mr 95%

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Our brain had to cut back on some basics to allow us greater processing power. Our eyesight is imperfect, but good enough to save us from dangerous creatures and find food.

There are gaps, which our brain fills in for us. This is the reason for pareidolia, where we see see images in objects - like Jesus on a piece of toast, and why we can filter out things like spots on a windscreen. Animals like birds can see a greater spectrum of colours; but our perception is good enough for us to be able to detect objects, hunt, and make things. It is also why magicians can fool us with illusions.
Just amazing.. Is this the same thing when we drive a car? Our brain filter’s what we see?
 
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