Trajectory Unclear: Feb 2013 Asteroid Will Be Within Thousands of M...

Impact Would Be As Big As Siberian Tunguska Event; 1000 Times More Powerful Than Hiroshima

Mac Slavo
SHTFPlan.com
Monday, March 5, 2012

In the history of the solar system, and even in human history, there are clear records of extraordinary and devastating catastrophes… On the landscapes of other planets, where the records of the past are better preserved, there is abundant evidence of major catastrophes. It’s all a matter of time scales. An event which is improbable in a hundred years, may be inevitable in a hundred million years. Even on the Earth in this century there have been bizarre natural events.

Carl Sagan 
Cosmos – A Personal Voyage (1980) [video]

On June 30, 1908 an incoming meteor exploded approximately 5 miles above Siberia. The force of the air burst explosion, estimated at between 15 and 30 megatons, or about 1000 times bigger than the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima, was so powerful that it annihilated everything in an 830 square mile area, and reports suggest that that explosion was heard up to 1000 miles away. Because of the remoteness of the impact zone, the Tunguska Event over Siberia had very little effect on the human population in the region, but the destruction of some 80 million trees in the area shows just how powerful a blast was created.

Should a Tunguska type event occur on our planet today, especially over a populated metropolitan area, millions would be killed instantly, with many millions more being affected by the social and economic reverberations that may result from the catastrophe.

According to NASA, there is a distinct possibility that an asteroid recently identified by star gazers in Spain could hit Earth around February 15, 2013. Based on its size and trajectory, it’s estimated that the 60 to 100 meter wide asteroid, dubbed 2012 DA14, could be similar in scope and devastation to Tunguska should it enter our atmosphere.

Scientists aren’t exactly sure where on Earth the impact would occur, but they are sounding proximity warnings now:

The asteroid, known as DA14, will pass by our planet in February 2013 at a distance of under 27,000 km (16,700 miles). This is closer than the geosynchronous orbit of some satellites.

There is a possibility the asteroid will collide with Earth, but further calculation is required to estimate the potential threat and work out how to avert possible disaster, NASA expert Dr. David Dunham told students at Russia’s University of Electronics and Mathematics.

“The Earth’s gravitational field will alter the asteroid’s path significantly. Further scrupulous calculation is required to estimate the threat of collision,” said Dr. Dunham, as transcribed by Russia’s Izvestia. “The asteroid may break into dozens of small pieces, or several large lumps may split from it and burn up in the atmosphere. The type of the asteroid and its mineral structure can be determined by spectral analysis. This will help predict its behavior in the atmosphere and what should be done to prevent the potential threat,” said Dr. Dunham.

In the event of a collision, scientists have calculated that the energy released would equate to the destructive power of a thermo-nuclear bomb.

Source: RT

How close is it? In 2005, scientists warned of the potentially hazardous asteroid named YU55, which passed within 200,000 miles of earth. In space distance terms, 2012 DA14 which will be within 20,000 miles of earth, is just a stones throw away.

It’s close, as demonstrated by the following orbit diagram from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory:

Asteroid impacts are certainly a low probability event – well, at least when we look at them in terms of human time scales. But history is replete with evidence that asteroid impacts have been responsible for massive earth changes, and that they happen fairly regularly when considered in times scales of tens of millions of years.

While the chances of earth being hit by a ‘global killer’ during our lifetime is remote, the Tunguska event and DA14′s near-earth passing next year is strong evidence that smaller impacts do happen quite regularly – perhaps at least once a century. DA14 may not be a global killer, but it is certainly large enough to destroy an entire city or region, an event that could lead to destabilization and systemic, cascading collapse in other parts of our intertwined modern day economic, financial and political systems.

We’re not suggesting that we should all panic because of DA14′s near earth passing, or even potential impact, because if this asteroid is meant to hit us there’s nothing that we as individuals on the ground here on earth can do about it. However, the US government is and has been Preparing For Unlikely Events Like War, Catastrophic Collapse of So..., so you can feel confident knowing that you’re not a lunatic to at least consider the possibility of an asteroid impact adversely affecting life as we know it.

Take a page out of the the government’s SHTF plan. Far-from-equilibrium events do happen and as unlikely or improbable as they may be, include wide-spread natural disasters like mega Tsunamis, mega quakes, super volcanoes and asteroid impacts.

For Your Entertainment: A scene from one of our favorite doomsday movies of all time:

President: “What kind of damage [are we talking about]?”

Dan Truman: “Damage? Total, sir. It’s what we call a global killer. the end of mankind. It doesn’t matter where it hits, nothing will survive. Not even bacteria.”