Could an asteroid or comet hit earth?

Question

I was told that one was expected to hit us in about 2026 or some time? Is this true?

It's called Apophis. It's 390m wide. And it could hit Earth in 31 years time


http://www.guardian.co.uk/space/article/0,14493,1660485,00.html

Answer 1

It has happened in the past, and will doubtless happen again.

I'm not aware of the 2026 collision you mention, but I know there was a scare a couple of years back of this kind, but when they got better data on the orbit of the body in question it turned out it was going to miss us by half a million miles or more.

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Additional - looked up the info on Apophis on the website below. It seems there's a 33% chance of a "near miss" in 2037 but virtually no chance of a collision - the estimate of the nearest approach in 2037 is almost 500 times further away than for 2029, which definitely will be a close approach (but definitely won't be a collision).

Don't buy shares in hard-hat companies just yet!

Answer 2

An asteroid could hit the earth it would have to be a lot bigger than 390 metres, probably bigger than 100 kilometers wide, to cause mass extinction, seeing as most of the meteorite burns up when decelerating from a very high cosmic velocity, to it's terminal velocity caused by, odds are with modern technology we could see any thing big enough to wipe out life on earth decades before it reaches the earth and we could launch a rocket with an explosive payload to send the asteroid off course in space even a small explosion could alter the asteroid's course enough to completely miss earth, and nuclear warheads could probably break the asteroid into smaller pieces that pose no threat,if 2907's trajectory could be altered by even half a degree it would miss earth

And a comet is just dust and frozen gas so it would completely disintigrate upon entering the atmosphere

Answer 3

yes, meteors are constanly hitting the earth. Thankfully most of them are very small! It is thought that the main reason the dinosaurs became extinct was due to a massive meteor hitting the earth.

There are many pieces of rock that are being looked at in order to determine if they are on a collision course with the earth, and recently there have been near misses (mind you a near miss is in the several millions of miles!), but I do not think that the 2026 timeframe is a reality.

Answer 4

It has now been varified that it will NOT hit the Earth in 2026, although as an Earth crossing object it might do some day. We get hit all the time by small objects, it just a matter of time before something bit hits.

Answer 5

According to Russia's Institute of Applied Astronomy, about 400 asteroids and over 30 comets currently present a potential threat to the planet.

The institute's specialists are particularly concerned about an asteroid known as Number 2907, a kilometer-wide chunk of space rock that they believe "with a large degree of certainty" will strike the Earth on December 16, 2880.

Answer 6

I don't know about 2026. There have been major strikes in the past, the most recent being in Russia in about 1910.

With modern astronomy, we'd get plenty of warning so don't worry about one landing on your head just yet. There's a theory that we might be able to divert the next one or destroy it before it came anywhere near Earth, but that depends whether anyone's a good enough shot.

Answer 7

Yes, one could.

Yes, a medium sized asteroid would be catastrophic.

There is no evidence that one will hit us in 2026 - I believe that there is one whose path will come within a million miles of Earth, but the chances of collision are less than 1 in a million.

Answer 8

I don't know about the particular comet you've mentioned, but, yes, it is entirely possible that a comet will hit earth. At the moment, the world only has the resources to track 10% of the astronomical bodies that come close enought to earth to be considered a danger to us...

Answer 9

that one is in the list of asteroids that prove a very good chance of colliding with earth, but we can never tell until it gets close.

at some point in the future we will be struck by something, it has happened before and is enevitable that it will again, after all....

if something is possible then as time passes the probability of it happening will increase to 100%

Answer 10

As I remember from Science class, in about well a million years so (I'm not really sure) the astrologers or scientist said that there will be an asteriod which will hit Earth.