Recently I read in the news that an asteroid almost hit the earth, like two days ago?

Question

What are the odds of that happening like the Armegeddon movie?
We have had many meteors crash here? Would we know in time to launch missiles?

Answer 1

Asteroids hit the Earth every day.
Most are small and just burn up harmlessly in our atmosphere.

Large asteroids, a mile or larger in diameter, have hit the Earth in the past.

These events are rare, but the orbits of these large asteroids have not all been discovered yet.

If we know the orbit of an object we can predict if/when it might collide with the Earth.

But sometimes those large asteroids can have their orbit changed by accident; like a collision between asteroids; or by gravity, as they pass too near one of the giant outer planets of our Solar System.

The dangers are very real. The dinosaurs were killed off, in part, because of an asteroid that crashed into South America.

As our solar system orbits the Milky Way, other stars pass near and can pull asteroids out of their normal orbit, causing them to get caught in the gravity of the outer planets and eventually pass near to the Earth.

Comets are a danger too. Many of us watched in horror as comet Schuler-Levy broke into a dozen pieces and smashed into Jupiter like a dozen super-hydrogen bombs!

Thankfully this really focussed our governments attention on this problem.

Many governments have put real money and thousands of scientists to tackle this issue.

Missiles are only one of many choices for defense.

The first and best defense is knowledge. Finding the big ones and following their progress is a very good start.

Answer 2

Asteroid Toutatis wasn't close sufficient to hit the earth. It replaced into even however nicely previous the moon whilst it made the bypass the day previous or contained today. From what I realize it replaced into 4.3 million miles distant from Earth (better than 18 situations the hollow from the Earth to the Moon), 2.7 miles long and a million.5 miles huge. If it hit, it ought to do a sprint harm regardless of the undeniable fact that that's now no longer probably to, thinking that's trajectory. bypass seem it up! there are a lot of imagery on line and on astronomy internet web content. some ought to truly watch it with binoculars.

Answer 3

no no no bad thing don't launch a missile this will break it into smaller asteroids causing more damage think of the earth as a ball in a police shooting training facility they earth orbits an object with bullets flying eventually it will get hit but we have ideas that would lure an object of colossal results off its course to impact earth by using gravity of a larger object of firring retrorockets at a precise time to slowly move it out of the way my advice don't worry about that

Answer 4

Impacts big enough to cause global catastrophe are pretty darn rare: Millions of years pass between one such impact and the next. Accordingly, the chance of an Armageddon-style asteroid hit happening in any given year is perhaps one in ten million.

Currently there's no defense, but at the rate technology is progressing, we'll probably find a way to defend against such impacts within a matter of decades. Since the next such impact is probably millions of years away, I don't think there's any point in worrying about this particular type of disaster. You're far more likely to be killed in, say, a traffic accident.

Answer 5

Probability is fairly high, cosmically speaking. There is no defense. Missiles will do not good, best case, it splits the body into mutliple smaller peices that will hit the earth in more that one place, causing even more damage and a more rapid extinction event.
Enjoy life today, the future is precarious, at the best of times. Just ask an Iraqi.

Answer 6

Astreroids hit the earth every day but most burn up in the atmosphere. It's only time before a big one comes along but it pobably won't be big enough to destroy the earth. Just a few cities.

Answer 7

it never happens by we do have about 800 'potentially hazardous asteroids' pass by every day according to spaceweather.com