I didn't think you ever wanted to sleep again, so here's a video to help with that

[~jet]

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_d-gs0WoUw&hd=1"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_d-gs0WoUw&hd=1[/ame]

30 animated years of asteroid discovery... watch in 720p HD at the very least, and full screen it if you can. Quite impressive

 

[the]

I was certain that something was going to pop out to try and scare me lol

 

[~jet]

Well, all those red dots are kinda popping in and out all over the place all the time... =P

 

[Billy]

That asteroid belt past mars, I always assumed it was a planet that didnt make it, perhaps Krypton?

 

[88chaz88]

Yup we get hit by asteroids all the time. Our atmosphere protects us though and most burn up before they hit the ground.

 

[~jet]

Oh yeah, we're not in any severely serious danger... still, thats over half a million asteroids being tracked in that one image (the green ones are no danger at all.)

And yes, That was almost certainly a small planet at one time. The early gravity oscillations between joop and saturn as they settled into their modern day orbits did a lot by way of demolition.

 

[Wyote]

lol the technology improved 1:50-forward.

 

[Bird]

I wish I could pinpoint visually what asteroids were popping along on the day of my birth.

 

[88chaz88]

Oh yeah, we're not in any severely serious danger... still, thats over half a million asteroids being tracked in that one image (the green ones are no danger at all.)

And yes, That was almost certainly a small planet at one time. The early gravity oscillations between joop and saturn as they settled into their modern day orbits did a lot by way of demolition.

Feel sorry for Mars. Our gravitational pull is stronger so we get hit more but Mars has virtually no atmosphere and gets the shit kicked out of it.

Also the only reason they move out of the belt is because of Jupiter's pull eliptifying their orbits. Interesting since it's widely believed that Jupiter protects us from them, when really it's the opposite.

 

[~jet]

Feel sorry for Mars. Our gravitational pull is stronger so we get hit more but Mars has virtually no atmosphere and gets the shit kicked out of it.

Also the only reason they move out of the belt is because of Jupiter's pull eliptifying their orbits. Interesting since it's widely believed that Jupiter protects us from them, when really it's the opposite.

Well it does both simultaneously, and for the same reason you mentioned... it pulls more than either mars or earth, and so while that dislodges more material, it also pulls more of it into itself, too. Without Joop we'd be a far more scarred place than we are.

 

[88chaz88]

Well it does both simultaneously, and for the same reason you mentioned... it pulls more than either mars or earth, and so while that dislodges more material, it also pulls more of it into itself, too. Without Joop we'd be a far more scarred place than we are.

I'm afraid it does more damage than good. The 'roids need to elipse before they get pulled towards Jupiter, it's while they elipse that we get the brunt of them. Jupiter does get hit more, but we potentially get hit first.

It's a love hate relationship.

 

[~jet]

Can't quite agree, though the principle is sound; you just need to remember that large bodies tend to 'lull' smaller ones into ever tightening orbits. If Joop is the one responsible for kicking an asteroid into a new orbit, unless that asteroid makes good with the infinitesimal chance of accidentally hitting another body on its way, it's going to loop ever closer to Joop until its end fate is essentially guaranteed... that it will impact with the aforementioned planet. We've seen it happen three times in just the last year, while we've yet to witness the same happening to mars or earth.

Also, the saturn-joop dynamic is pretty stable now... their inter-acting migrations occurred a long time ago along with the majority of asteroid kicks resulting from that.

Still, the same thing can occur here. A close enough pass with Earth could turn a joop-fate into an earth-fate, as is occurring with Apophis. Each loop it makes brings it closer to earth, so it's largely just a matter of time with that one.

 

[88chaz88]

Can't quite agree, though the principle is sound; you just need to remember that large bodies tend to 'lull' smaller ones into ever tightening orbits. If Joop is the one responsible for kicking an asteroid into a new orbit, unless that asteroid makes good with the infinitesimal chance of accidentally hitting another body on its way, it's going to loop ever closer to Joop until its end fate is essentially guaranteed... that it will impact with the aforementioned planet. We've seen it happen three times in just the last year, while we've yet to witness the same happening to mars or earth.

Yes but as it's looping that's when it moves through our area. The difference is it's guaranteed to hit Jupiter and can only potentially hit us. As I said, Jupiter gets hit a lot more but every one that hits it moved into our safety zone (which is clearly not that safe) at some point.

Still nothing to worry about though.

 

[~jet]

Yes but as it's looping that's when it moves through our area. The difference is it's guaranteed to hit Jupiter and can only potentially hit us. As I said, Jupiter gets hit a lot more but every one that hits it moved into our safety zone (which is clearly not that safe) at some point.

Still nothing to worry about though.

Naw, that's definitely fair. We are kind of a small target for something that's only passing through... the ones that essentially 'live' in our orbit and are on loops with us are the most serious (albeit somewhat depleted) danger.

 

[88chaz88]

Naw, that's definitely fair. We are kind of a small target for something that's only passing through... the ones that essentially 'live' in our orbit and are on loops with us are the most serious (albeit somewhat depleted) danger.

Yeah, I personally think that we now have the power to stop any previously cataclysmic meteors. We have nuclear power that far exceeds that of the Hiroshima bomb and we only need to break them up into chunks that are "safe" for Earth.

Btw did you notice that the new definition of planet (object that has cleared it's orbit of objects) excludes Earth.

 

[~jet]

Pff, I dont give a[n] explicative about the current definition of planet. =)

Here's mine:

Planet. Noun: Any non-fusing body of mass that condenses into a sphere under the stress of its own gravity.

Doesn't have to be a perfect sphere (our own earth's equator bulges a bit, as most do.) nor does it matter if it ALSO happens to be a moon. It just needs to be not a sun, a solar dwarf (neutron, white, brown, whatever), or planetoid with lumpy things sticking out of it that are half as large as itself. Can be made of gas, ice, rock, whatever.

Nice and simple and includes earth, jupiter, ceres, and pluto along with luna and ganymede and titan and triton and others. =)

 

[88chaz88]

Pff, I dont give a[n] explicative about the current definition of planet. =)

Here's mine:

Planet. Noun: Any non-fusing body of mass that condenses into a sphere under the stress of its own gravity.

Doesn't have to be a perfect sphere (our own earth's equator bulges a bit, as most do.) nor does it matter if it ALSO happens to be a moon. It just needs to be not a sun, a solar dwarf (neutron, white, brown, whatever), or planetoid with lumpy things sticking out of it that are half as large as itself. Can be made of gas, ice, rock, whatever.

Nice and simple and includes earth, jupiter, ceres, and pluto along with luna and ganymede and titan and triton and others. =)

I agree totally but maybe we should class anything smaller than pluto as a dwarf planet. Just use simple measurements of size. Stupid astronomers always trying to overcomplicate things.

 

[88chaz88]

May have to turn this into a "holy shit space is awesome" thread after spotting this:

Alpha Centauri is envisioned as the first target for unmanned interstellar exploration. Crossing the huge distance between the Sun and Alpha Centauri using current spacecraft technologies would take several millennia, though the possibility of space sail, or Nuclear Pulse Fusion technology may cut this down to a matter of decades.

We could actually be visiting extrasolar objects within our lifetimes! Even if we don't imagine what we could still accomplish. I wouldn't be surprised if we end up setting up the first station on the surface of Mars within 20 years.

 

[~jet]

I still plan on taking a hiking vacation/retirement at Tau Ceti.

 

[88chaz88]

I still plan on taking a hiking vacation/retirement at Tau Ceti.

Well it seems rather unlikely that Tau Ceti in particular would host rocky planets but Gliese 581 has some fine candidates including Gliese 581e which is the most similar exoplanet to Earth. It's also only 20 lightyears away so if Tau Ceti becomes acheivable it's not hard to go twice the distance.

Really if we do start exploring Alpha Centuri, anything within the 50 light year radius doesn't seem like that much of a stretch.