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Re: Fw: (meteorobs) Doomsday Icarus

Victor:

The article (below) about Icarus hitting the Earth in 2006 is, of course,
nonesense.  Icarus will miss the Earth by tens of millions of kilometers.
This is pure fiction.

David Morrison

>David:
>What do you make of the following post on a number of meteor and astronomy
>lists?
>Victor
>
>----------
>> From: C. Hernandez 
>> To: EB@ATLASTRO.ML.ORG
>> Cc: ASTRO@lists.mindspring.com; meteorobs@latrade.com;
>shallow-sky@lists.best.com; meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com;
>celsom-w@AMAUTA.RCP.NET.PE
>> Subject: (meteorobs) Doomsday Icarus
>> Date: Tuesday, March 10, 1998 8:59 PM
>>
>> Celso and lists members:
>>
>> Following you'll find a free translation of the article published last
>> Sunday on "La Nacion" the most popular daily newspaper of Costa Rica,
>> and a highly reputed one, from EFE's Spanish news agency and mentioned
>> by Celso Montalvo in his posting of today. His posting means that it has
>> been published at least in our two countries, and who knows in how many
>> more.
>>
>> As much as I didn't agree with some of the ideas of Mr. David H. Levy's
>> article of last month's S&T, I must applaud and adhere to his comments
>> on March's S&T page 84 as to the danger of publishing such kind of news
>> over mass media. If C. Shramek's anouncement over the Net about the
>> Saturn-like object could have been a cause for the tragic events of
>> California's religious cult suicide, I just don't want to imagine what
>> this kind of news, being true or not, can cause on the common people's
>> beliefs.
>>
>> Although I don't think I will be heard, I could not let this kind of
>> news pass uncommented and I already made my points of view known to the
>> newspaper. Coments will be welcome over the Net too.
>>
>> The article reads as follows:
>>
>>      <<	ASTEROID COLLISION FORESEEN
>>
>> 	EFE. Moscow
>>
>> 	Russian scientists said that the end of the world will take
>> 	place in eight years, when Earth will collide with an asteroid,
>> 	and only the joint effort of all countries could avoid the
>> 	dramatic ending.
>>
>> 	The name of the asteroid is Icarus, with a diameter of 1.5 Km
>> 	and a mass of several hundred tons, which approaches Earth at a
>> 	speed of 60 Km per second.
>>
>> 	Its impact with Earth would cause an explosion equivalent to a
>> 	thousand thermonuclear warheads with the power of one million
>> 	tons of dynamite each, according to calculations by
>> 	astrophysicists.
>>
>> 	Russian scientists alerted that the impact is "almost
>> 	unavoidable" and made a plea to all states to conform a common
>> 	front of action to carry out a sophisticated space project to
>> 	deviate or destroy the deadly planetoid with powerful nuclear
>> 	detonations.
>>
>> 	Icarus, discovered in 1949, comes near the Earth every 19 years,
>> 	but each time its distance to us is reduced and its velocity
>> 	increases, and scientists fear that its next visit, in the
>> 	summer of 2006, will be the last one.
>>
>> 	In 1949 it passed 28 million Km away from Earth on its way to
>> 	the Sun, but 19 years later, on June 14, 1968, its distance was
>> 	reduced to only 6.36 million Km.
>>
>> 	The scientist Valdimir Polevanov, geologist of the Russian
>> 	Natural Sciences Academy, says that the danger lies in Icarus
>> 	not having a permanent orbit, because it evolves in space under
>> 	he effect of the Sun and the rest of the planets.
>>
>> 	This fact makes that the threat of a collision of Icarus with
>> 	Earth be "more than probable", emphasized Polevanov in an
>> 	article published in the popular newspaper Trud.
>>
>> 	In the last 250 million years of Earth's history, the fauna and
>> 	flora of our planet has been erased 9 times, with an average of
>> 	every 30 million years and scientists opine that, at least once,
>> 	this was caused by "extraterrestrial" causes.
>>
>> 	The extinction of species registered in the Cretacean and
>> 	Tertiary eras of the geological history of the planet was due to
>> 	the collision of an asteroid that perforated the terrestrial
>> 	crust and caused "apocalyptic" consequences, said the academic.
>>
>> 	He quoted that, according to scientific data, some 1.500
>> 	asteroids with a diameter superior to 1 Km have collided with
>> 	Earth. He also said that those collisions are unavoidable and
>> 	that "the worst" is coming in 8 years.
>>
>> 	To avoid this end, "international measures are required at the
>> 	UN and its Security Council levels", and he proposed a world
>> 	project called "Save the Planet".
>>
>> 	His worry was shared by Col. Vladimir Tkachenko, chief of
>> 	experts of the Institute of Scientific Research on Space Systems
>> 	in Russia, who told the newspaper that this institution has
>> 	already elaborated a plan to "neutralize" Icarus.
>>
>> 	Many prestigious scientists believe that the collision of Icarus
>> 	with Earth is unavoidable and that governments must pay
>> 	attention to these voices.
>>
>> 	The project foresees the launch of a ship from which a rocket
>> 	would be send to Icarus with a space platform carrying several
>> 	modules that would be launched to the asteroid in turns.Upon
>> 	reaching its surface, each module would bore the ground and
>> 	would place powerful atomic heads which, activated
>> 	simultaneously, would destroy the asteroid.>>
>>
>> Sorry to the lists for the lenghty post but it deserves some atention.
>>   _
>> /   \
>>     /   Carlos Hernandez
>>   o     Heredia, Costa Rica
>>  /      "May your skies be 'pura vida' tonight"
>>  \ _ /
>>
>>
>>
>> > ----------
>> > > From: celsom-w 
>> > > To: EB@ATLASTRO.ML.ORG
>> > > Subject: [EB] Icaro
>> > > Date: Monday, March 09, 1998 7:52 AM
>> > >
>> > > Hi friends:
>> > >
>> > > Yesterday I read in the newspaper that some russian astronomers have
>> > > calculated that Icaro (asteroid, 1.5 km diam) will collide with >
>>earth in  2006 or so. This can be a global catastrophe similar to the
>> > > Chicxulub event, 65 million tears ago. Have you read or heard of > >
>> > this news?
>> > >
>> > > Saludos.
>> > > --
>> > > Celso Montalvo
>> > > ELECONT INGENIERIA S. A.
>> > > Lima-PERU
>> > > 12o S; 77o W.
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