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Permalink Reply by Thomas Marshall on October 30, 2011 at 11:57am

I'm no scientist, but i do know that if this thing is going to pass as close to us as they're saying, some crazy stuff is going to happen. Probably not end of the world stuff, but crazy stuff none the less. The moon controls the tide, and is the reason that Earth has a tilt, among a great many other things. Now, if this asteriod is large enough, it is going to have its own gravity. Its gravitational force would be much less than that of Earth, but it could still have an effect on things. Tides will most likely be excessively high in some areas, and excessively low in others. The Earth's orbit could wobble slightly. There are a lot of doomsday possibilities also. Such as the eruption of the super volcano under yellowstone (its eruption is actually overdue) which is a global extinction event. But its all hearsay and conjecture. We won't really know whats going to happen until it happens. I am a skeptic by nature. More than likely nothing will happen, but there's always that possibility. 

And yes, this is scary. On a cosmic scale something passing this close to us is unsettling. As you said, the moon is 270,000 miles away. It is our closest neighbor. This asteroid could possibly come closer to us than that.

I looked at the "super nerd" stuff. I didn't understand the technical terms at all (as i said, I'm not a scientist), but i do know how to read a diagram. To me, it looks as though its just a matter of time until this thing smashes us.  

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Permalink Reply by Richard C. on October 30, 2011 at 12:58pm

ok hold on ... its only 1400 ft in size as large as a football field no gravitational force what soever ....

no definantly no "doomsday" there are 3 posable out comes if it gets to our atmosphere:

1.) hits the ocean .... tsunami ... probability at max of a 75 ft wave if you live within a 150 mile radius of the strike. and a 6.5 earthquake

2.) hits land ... 10 megaton blast, 5 mile crater  up to 1000 ft deep ,7.8 earthquake dead zone of 50 miles , 100 mile damage radius very survivable at that point but i would not want to be there....

3.) explodes in mid air no crater but alot of damage be 10 megatons you can guess the rest.....

 

none the less not planet devastating but would be very tragic

 

oh here is how i got the info...

What would happen if Asteroid 2005 YU55 Hit Earth?

 

using the program Impact earth.... find it here .....

impact earth

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Permalink Reply by Richard C. on November 8, 2011 at 5:23am

The Earth is gravitationally dominant up to the distance of 1.5 million km (0.01 AU). The Moon's orbit, at a distance of 0.384 million km from Earth, is comfortably within the gravitational
sphere of influence of Earth.

P.S. gravity itself goes on indefinitely, but decreases with distance.

Source(s):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hill_sphere

at approximately 11:30 pm eastern on 11-8-2011 it will be 325,674 km from earth and within the gravitational influence ...... any arguments?

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Permalink Reply by Dave G on November 9, 2011 at 6:24pm

There's no danger from this asteroid. As mentioned in the articles and in NASA's data, the orbital path of this rock is well understood. It'll swing by and keep going without any appreciable effect on the Earth or the Moon save for us taking advantage of its nearness to examine it in detail.

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Permalink Reply by Brian Wood on November 11, 2011 at 5:54am

Sooner or later a big one will strike.  We'll then be gone, but I'm betting global warming will get us first.

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