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Re: (meteorobs) Question about Asteroid Collisions
Dear Kevin and Meterobs,
>There is a diagram in the book "Rogue Asteroids and Doomsday Comets" that show
>thousands of asteroid orbits that cross each others orbits as well as Earth's.
>The impact could actually come from anywhere.
>
>Kevin
You have to be carefully about drawing conclusions about two dimensional
diagrams when considering crossings. Because of the inclination of orbits,
many paths that seem to cross actually miss by millions or even tens of
millions of miles. Nonetheless near collions of currently benign asteroids
could turn one of them into a dangerous earth impact projectile. That is
why we need to spend the money to catalog and follow these things for as
long as we are on this planet.
The sad thing is that the cost of one shuttle launch could problably fund
ten years worth of telescope research and monitoring. But we should also
visit and test the durability of these object for the purpose of developing
methods of deflection. Clinton line item vetoed one such project primarily
because of the "giggle factor." Maybe after the appearance of 1997 XF11
that situation will change
Terry
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Terry Richardson
Department of Physics and Astronomy
College of Charleston
Charleston, SC 29424
pager #937-1048
843 953-8071 phone
843 953-4824 fax
http://www.cofcdot edu/~richardt/
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