Is it true that a meteor is going to crash on Earth and destroy it (Earth) in 2010?

Question

Well my friend Cynthia, told me that she had heard in the radio that a meteor was going to crash into Earth in 2010. But i don't believe her, because it would've been coming on TV...
I don't know if it is true or not............. HELP!!

Answer 1

I don't think she got the year right. The asteroid might hit Earth on March 2014, but i dont think it will.

Answer 2

Well, a meteor is probably going to hit the earth in 2010! Infact, meteors hit the earth every day! If you go out at night and see a falling star, that is a meteor entering the earth's atmosphere. If it actually reaches the ground it is called a meteroite. Tons of micrometeorites fall on the earth each day. These bits of space dust are usually very small

Larger meteorites do hit the earth, and they appear to be more common than previously thought. George Shoemaker suggests that once a year there is a meteorite that hits the earth with the force of 1 atomic bomb.

The large meteor with possibly the best chance of hitting earth was discovered in 2004, a 320-m asteroid named 99942 Apophis. It was initially given a 1-17 chance of hitting the earth in the year 2029! Scientists later determined it would miss the earth by about 25,000 miles. That is actually closer to the earth than some satellites!

What scientists don't know is how exactly the earth's gravity will affect 99942 Apophis, so there is a chance it may hit the earth when it passes back by in the year 2036. So scientist will be watching it very closely when it passes by to see how it is affected. There is about a 1 in 45,000 chance of 99942 Apophis hitting the earth eventually.

So, your friend is not correct about the year 2010. It might happen eventually, but the chances of a meteor actually destroying earth are very, very small.

Answer 3

Kevin has a good response. You cannot believe everything that you hear from gossip. I heard that someone else heard from someone that...

Mat is completely lost. It's fun to let yourself get caught up in all of the what ifs that exist in the world until you actually find yourself believing in it without a shred of evidence. Mat makes his life seem mystical and fascinating instead of boring by wishing that he lives in the end times. Such a person is very easily deceived to believe in things which are not in any way true (such as Earth being knocked out of it's orbit). Some persons are highly gullable to believe anything they hear.

I believe you are referring to an asteroid not a meteoroid (meteor is the flash of light a meteoroid produces). If I were you, I would choose a better radio station for your information. The person was either selling a book or was seriously misled by some poor disinformation which they heard and are now promoting it as true.

There is no asteroid (or meteoroid) that will impact Earth in 2010 (or 2012 or any other year in the known future). If you want to see for yourself the orbit and impact chance of any NEO asteroid, ask Cynthia or whoever speaks on the radio or someone else's teacher the NAME of this supposed asteroid and type it in here

http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/orbits/

It would be wise to get science information from science books or magazines or websites like NASA instead of Mat or your friends.

Demoham should read his information better before hyping another end of the world scam. The asteroid 2003 QQ47 has an impact chance of 1 in 909,000. This is a very low impact chance. If you are going to fear such chances then you are better off crawling under a rock to live.

banjoman is incorrect. The last magnetic reversal on Earth was 780,000 years ago. The Brunhes Matuyama reversal. There are many pseudowebsites giving out false information on the internet as they jump onto the end-of-the-Earth bandwagon and I'm sure this is where banjoman got his information from. The truth is that while the magnetic poles are currently weakening, they are above the past 2,000 year average. IF they were to continue their present rate of decline, a reversal could occur between 3500 and 4000 AD. However, there is no reason to expect such a decline. The strength of the magnetic field has gone up and down randomly in the past with no reversal effect. I would also add that the Mayan calendar nor culture ever speak that the world will end. Nostradamus predicted the world would end in 1999. I would suggest that such things are from the imagination and not based upon science fact but on pseudowebsites and fiction. Examine your sources more closely before repeating gossip and lunacy that you saw on the internet as fact.

Answer 4

Not true, as far as we know. Several hundred asteroids are being tracked at this time, and none will impact Earth in 2010.

However, one could slam into us in the next five minutes because we simply can't track all the asteroids around us. A couple of years ago a very big one missed us by only 74,564 miles. What's scary about that one is that we didn't know it was around until three days *after* it went by (http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2444.html)

By the way...disregard the nonsense about a solar flare in December, 2012. Science has no way of predicting solar activity that precisely and that far in the future.

Answer 5

(PhD Physicist responds) Probably not in 2010. A meteor big enough to destory earth would be about 10 miles across or more, and skywatch knows where almost all of those in our solar system are. It will happen eventually, though. A "dinosaur Killer" asteroid hits the earth about every 100 million years. The last one was 62 million years ago.

If you follow prophecy (which is generally so obscure it probably means anything you want it to), Nostradamus, Edgar Cayce, and the Mayan Calendar all say the world as we know it will end in 2012. Cayce says the rotation of the earth will change December 21st 2012 and the positon of the north pole will shift. We scientists do see the magnetic north pole is beginning to shift, which it does about every 60,000 years, the last time being 60,000 years ago. If the rotational pole shifts, it might bring an ice age to North America and Europe, but other parts of the earth would not be affected.

Sleep well!

Answer 6

No that not true,but there is an asteroid called Apophis.Apophis will pass Earth in April 13,2029.Thats Friday the 13.And if it miss us it will again return on April 13,2036 and that is the most deadliest part,because if its orbit in 2029 will shift/change,it will hit/impact Earth.We will see on 2029 if its orbit will change/shift.According to astronomers and scientist,It has a 1 in 40,000 that it will impact Earth.

Answer 7

Sooner or later this planet will be in a position to get creamed by a large chunk of ice, rock, metal or combination therof. The odds of it happening in 2010 are miniscule, and even 2036 is unlikely, but it will happen sooner or later. The upside is that we have the technology to alter the course of a threatening object provided that we see it in time.

Answer 8

Sister, you're obviously young, and it's great to see you aren't gullible and have a mind to check things first. Wacko! Answers is the worst place you can do this. In fact, anywhere on the web there's a better than even chance that you'll find a crackpot site if you search for something like this.

Follow your initial idea and look in reputable news outlets.

Answer 9

No------- this is NOT True------------- however it's the 2036 asteroid that scientists are looking at for a "near" Earth pass.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/12/04/tech/main2225061.shtml

Answer 10

No, however, there is some controversy and scientific study regarding the world ending in 2012.

-There is a volcano that erupts every 12,000 years and it hasn't erupted for 13,000 years now (it is quite overdue).

-The sun sends out what are called solar flares, which sends charged subatomic particles to Earth. The Earth will become so positively charged with protons that it may get out of its orbit.

-For an unknown reason, the magnetic plates on the Earth are shrinking. The more they shrink, the greater the chances we have of getting out of orbit.

There are scientists that are continuously researching on this topic; however, some scientists and Mayan followers believe that the "world will end" in 2012.