Has anyone else heard this??

Question

Today my son came home from school, He is in middle school...Anyway, he told me that his teacher made all the student's sit down and he told them he wanted to tell them somthing he found out before he started class. Now he told the student's that there was an asteroid discovered that is predicted to collide with earth or the moon in the year 2038...What I want to know is that has anyone else heard this too??? My son came home scared to death after he told them that, I really didn't know what to tell him... But I told him if that was the true facts then we would've heard about it on the news or internet... Is this true or not??

Answer 1

Yes, it is true. The name of the asteroid is 99942 Apophis. You can get more in the link. Basically, it will be a near miss in '36 and the Earth's grav, will set it on a course for Earth. If it happens, it will strike the west coast of the US and cause severe regional destruction. This is a very real threat and the teacher (though he may have been off on the dates) he is right. But, dont worry, this is only one mile wide, and will not kill the human race.

Answer 2

I heard about this possibility. But an asteroid in a colliding course 32 years before impact is speculation. Just doing the maths with our computers for certainty is beyond our reach. No one can predict such a course with such a precision. Too many gravitational influences will alter this stone to be sure of the impact.

Either this teacher read pseudo scientific scrap and believed it without thinking. This is a mistake as a teacher. Or he got serious scientific literature and didn't get the probabilistic side of the problem. No one can be sure with that precision. The teacher explained something he didn't understand. Or some scientist made noise to get credits. The teacher was lied into a mistake. In every situation I can think of, it's not good to get people scared for remote possibilities.

It's even worse than me thinking you scalping the teacher. You have a reason to do it. There is no reason to believe that this special asteroid will actually hit the earth. We are much more at risk to be hit by a plane.

Answer 3

What you need to understand is that the earth is being hit by meteors and astroids all the time. Most of the time they are way too small to even reach the earth's surface and burn up in the atmosphere. However, some do make it to the surface and you can go out and find them all over the earth. Now the chance of one big enough to make it through the atmosphere and make a big enough impact to do some major damage (such as causing a tsunami, or a huge explosion sending debris up into the atmosphere) is very rare, it can however, happen. Scientists and Astronomers regularly track meteors and astroids as they intersect with the earth's orbit. When one is going to get very close they will publicise this greatly. There are several actions that could be taken if one is discovered to be on a collision course with earth. There is no need for you or your son to be so worried. Encourage your son to take math and science classes in school. Encourage him to go to college and learn about the natural world. And by all means don't buy any of this christian fundamentalist crap about the earth, they have lent nothing to the great discoveries of science.

Answer 4

It wont collide

The near-Earth asteroid 3753 Cruithne is now known to be a companion, and an unusual one, of the Earth. This asteroid shares the Earth's orbit, its motion "choreographed" in such a way as to remain stable and avoid colliding with our planet. This relationship was revealed in a paper by Paul Wiegert, Kim Innanen and Seppo Mikkola, and published in the British-based science journal Nature on June 12, 1997. A brief non-technical description of the motion of Cruithne is presented below. However, Cruithne's path is much more complicated than simple satellite motion; pondering the diagrams carefully should help clarify matters. Note: small images have been used to ensure fast downloading; click on any figure for a larger, clearer image

Answer 5

We are possibly due to be hit by an asteroid, one mile wide, in the year 2038. As of right now, it looks like it will miss us by 600,000 miles, about 3 times the distance of the moon.

Answer 6

i don't often dry my hair with an digital gadget, yet through fact you asked, i've got on no account heard voices in my blow dryer. in line with possibility you grew to become it up so loud that the human beings who're shouting at you to speed up and get out of the bathing room sound like little whispers coming from the blow drier to you.

Answer 7

I did not hear anything like that, and that teacher is kind of a wacko for telling the kids something like that, if it were trure then he should of let the kids hear it on their own by watching the TV, I am a not a child in middle school but I can see how that would make someone scared to death.

Answer 8

this teacher sounds like a bit of a weirdo. I have not heard this at all, and even if it is predicted why sit down your class and tell them about it all serious in 2006?

Answer 9

http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/risk/a99942.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/99942_Apophis

"99942 apophis" is expected to pass very close to earth on 13 april 2036. i am not sure how close nasa expects it to get, but they predict that it will come within a fraction of the earth-moon distance.

Answer 10

The earth is not meant to be destroyed by asteroid collision. That teacher is talking a lot of B*#*#*#*.
Earth will be destroyed my mankind.