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The Asteroid YU55 is due to sail PAST us (Hopefully) on November the 8Th it is about the size of an Aircraft Carrier.and should it hit Earth,it will hit the Pacific Ocean causing a MASSIVE wave,

So lets hope it does not stop,this is just a warning to make sure you have your stamp collections,well protected,and fully insured against Asteroid Strikes.

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Nunawading Stamp Fair
Last Sunday of Every Month - Jaycees Hall Silver Grove - Nunawading.

It's going to miss Earth, but only by a whisker in astronomical scale (in real terms it'll miss by 325,000 kM).

Here's more:

"Officials say an asteroid of that magnitude striking Earth would likely result in a 4,000-megaton blast. The blast would likely decimate a large city. The impact alone could create a crater nearly 3 miles in diameter and upwards of a mile deep. The impact would likely result in a tidal wave nearly 70 feet high.

That said, Don Yeomans, manager of NASA's Near-Earth Object Program Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said the asteroid does not pose a threat and that an asteroid of this size is unlikely to strike earth within the next one-hundred years.

Mr. Yeomans said officials at NASA plan on observing the asteroid as it approaches and passes earth.

"During its closest approach, its gravitational effect on the Earth will be so minuscule as to be immeasurable. It will not affect the tides or anything else," he said.

NASA officials note that the last time an asteroid this big came this close to Earth was 1976. The next known approach of such a large asteroid will be in 2028. In the meantime, NASA has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to launch spacecraft intended to chart the paths of asteroids larger than .6 miles in diameter. NASA officials say the projects has allowed them to track most objects of that size, however, objects measuring more than .6 miles remain out of the field of vision.

Meanwhile, NASA issued a statement reassuring the public, saying they were well aware of the asteroid's trajectory, noting that plans are currently in place to observe the asteroid as it comes closer. NASA officials say asteroid impacts on earth of this magnitude are fairly rare, occurring only once every 100,000 years.

Scientists say stargazers will not be able to view the asteroid during its flyby. The asteroid will approach Earth from the sunward direction, so it will be a daylight object until just before the time of closest approach.

The latest flyby for the asteroid comes just six years after it was discovered by Robert McMillan at Steward Observatory's Spacewatch Telescope in Arizona."

(Courtesy of The State Column - http://www.thestatecolumn.com/science/asteroid-prepares-for-near-earth-flyby/)

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Tony

I notice there has not been the 'Tidal Wave' of issues on this asteroid (anybody remember Haley's Comet )

Could make some nice covers- Cachet '1 day to impact'- 'x' hours to impact' and so on

I went out and bought a $1,500 bottle of the finest McAllan's scotch whiskey I could find.

Forget the insurance, how will I ever collect?

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Greg - Looking for Goulburn Australia Cancels and Grangemouth Scotland Cancels and Covers
Member of the S.T.A.M.P Club for Slightly Twisted And Mad Philatelists - Motto: "Bring back the lick!"

I would suggest you polish off that bottle of Scotch the DAY before impact.
Then on the Day, you will be crawling around saying,
"Oh God will someone Please Take me out PLEASE"

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Nunawading Stamp Fair
Last Sunday of Every Month - Jaycees Hall Silver Grove - Nunawading.

"The impact would likely result in a tidal wave nearly 70 feet high."

Just thinking, I live on the edge of a cliff above that wave height level so I'll be OK

Memo to self.......don't go to the beach that day

Have you considered preparing some Last Day Covers?

You've been had

There's no such thing.

There's only Scotch Whisky (no "e")

If it's Whiskey with an "e", it's either American or Irish

It's also worth noting that of it hits the Earth it won't cause a tidal wave.

Tidal waves are caused by tides......

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Always on the lookout for Australian pre decimal First Day Covers.

Sell them for $5, $20, $100, won't matter, you won't have much time to enjoy it.

Ford Prefect: Here, keep the change.
Barman: From a fiver? Why, thank you sir.
Ford: You have 20 minutes left to spend it.

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Collecting Mongolia; Thailand; Indo-China; Mourning Covers; OHMS.
My online 'store': http://stampsfromaethelwulf.blogspot.com/

This must be Thursday. I never could get the hang of Thursdays.....but

I know where my towel is.

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FORESTS OLD, PASTURES NEW
(An expert is one who knows more and more, about less and less)

(In a depressed voice)

M. "I just spent the last 3 hours in the car park."
"What were you doing in the car park."
M. "Parking cars..."




Gavan, choke on a kilt! (flamin speling polce)

Wiki "In 2007, a bottle of 1926 The Macallan was sold at a Christie's auction for $54,000, making it one of the most expensive bottles of liquor ever sold.[9]

In 2010, a bottle of The Macallan 64-year-old single malt whisky in a one-of-a-kind "Lalique: Cire Perdue" crystal decanter was sold for $460,000 at an auction at Sotheby's in New York City. All proceeds from the sale were donated to "charity: water", an organisation that helps provide access to clean, safe drinking water to people in developing nations.[10]"

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Greg - Looking for Goulburn Australia Cancels and Grangemouth Scotland Cancels and Covers
Member of the S.T.A.M.P Club for Slightly Twisted And Mad Philatelists - Motto: "Bring back the lick!"

The chickens are running about,
Crying out;
"Run for cover. The sky is falling"

I always knew that Scotch drinker where snobs, the cost is more important then the whisky. Less then $100 buys a very good Bourbon, Run, Gin, Vodka or Rye that is better the those high priced ones.

Jack

I'm so sorry to hear that your taste buds have been ruined.

(Not that I would spend $50,000 on a bottle).

McAllan's start at about $70 AUD. Nice drop, even it's my namesake.

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Greg - Looking for Goulburn Australia Cancels and Grangemouth Scotland Cancels and Covers
Member of the S.T.A.M.P Club for Slightly Twisted And Mad Philatelists - Motto: "Bring back the lick!"

Heard a story about Chicken Little...

The kids are all listeneing in as the teacher reads the story of chicken little.

When she reads the part of chicken little telling the farmer: "the sky is falling, the sky is falling", the teacher asks the class what the farmer was thinking.

One bright spark calls out, "Hey a f****** talking chicken, I'm rich!"

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Greg - Looking for Goulburn Australia Cancels and Grangemouth Scotland Cancels and Covers
Member of the S.T.A.M.P Club for Slightly Twisted And Mad Philatelists - Motto: "Bring back the lick!"

At $A70 per bottle its no longer in the snob class. Its in the running with the rest.

Jack

Oh, it will only be a tsunami? I feel so much better already!

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Peter
Hawthorn - AFL Premiers 1961, 1971, 1976, 1978, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1991, 2008.

Any minute now.
Bottle opened, crazy straw inserted, surfboard ready....

It's a lovely day, a bit warm with a nice breeze.
Should go rent a Veyron for the afternoon?

Bye everyone....

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Greg - Looking for Goulburn Australia Cancels and Grangemouth Scotland Cancels and Covers
Member of the S.T.A.M.P Club for Slightly Twisted And Mad Philatelists - Motto: "Bring back the lick!"

I did not know it is actually going to be closer than the moon

That's too close for me

Nice picture of it on the Register: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/07/yu55_is_comng/

Bottle of Bourbon open and half gone, second bottle on hand.

Jack

How high is that cliff Tony????

To quote the SMH...

"An astrophysicist at the Australian National University, Paul Francis, said if a space rock the size, shape and speed of 2005 YU55 did collide with our planet it would ''certainly take out a medium-sized continent,'' or, if it landed in the ocean, create a 500-metre high tsunami."

*sigh* The world ended AGAIN, and I missed it? *sigh*

Nostradamus, Harold Camping and the Y2K nutters, among many others, have a lot to answer for.

Never mind, next year we have the Mayan Calendar, and 21 December to look forward to, when the world won't end yet again.

Let's talk about it in a few Trillion years when the sun goes Nova and dies a heat death. I for one am not looking forward to that day.

Norm

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Geelong, VFA Premiers 1878, 1879, 1800, 1882, 1883, 1884, 1886, AFL Premiers 1925, 1931, 1937, 1951, 1952, 1963, 2007, 2009, 2011, .

Whash ya prublom? Izz a grate day. What did I miz?

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Greg - Looking for Goulburn Australia Cancels and Grangemouth Scotland Cancels and Covers
Member of the S.T.A.M.P Club for Slightly Twisted And Mad Philatelists - Motto: "Bring back the lick!"

What if it goes off course, hits the moon. What happens to the tide then.

The asteroid apparently has a mass of around about 60,600kg. The moon has a mass of around 73,470,000,000,000,000,000,000kg.

But we would have a brand new interesting crater to observe, perhaps one to match the South Pole Aitken Basin, but since the Moon's orbit would not be more than marginalised from what it is now, Corio Bay would hardly become the new Surfing Capital of the world.

The estimate of the impact, were this thing to hit earth, is that the crater would be 3K in diameter.

The South Pole Aitken crater is 2,240K in diameter, so it was hit by something pretty big. OK, the atmosphere of the earth would seriously impact on the asteroids capacity to cause damage to this degree, but asteroids have hit the moon before, without any apparent major effect on the ecology of the day, or at least none of which has been scientifically measured.

The moon moves from around 356,400Km from Earth at Perigree to 406,700 at Apogee. The impact from YU55 would make a dent, but would not affect the Moon's orbit.

Norm

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Geelong, VFA Premiers 1878, 1879, 1800, 1882, 1883, 1884, 1886, AFL Premiers 1925, 1931, 1937, 1951, 1952, 1963, 2007, 2009, 2011, .

I guess then i will put my faith and trust in science and scientists, and trust they too, have not been in possession of Mcallens whiskey.
Whenever we here of these asteroids passing earth I always consider the moon.
One 6th the size, one 6th the gravity, How much would it take?? Maybe I watched too much SPACE 1999 when i was a younger man.

Not long to wait!!

Gary

The mass of the moon and its acceleration of gravity are not related in a 1:1 ratio.

The moon's mass is 1/81st of earth's, but the gravity is almost exactly 1/6th as great.

I remember reading about some monks in Europe who, in the Middle Ages (before the telescope was invented), observed (and recorded for posterity) a flash on the moon. It is pretty much universally recognised as the only recorded sighting of an object (asteroid or comet) hitting a large solar system body. Well, until the great pictures we got of a comet breaking up and smashing into Jupiter in 1994.

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Peter
Hawthorn - AFL Premiers 1961, 1971, 1976, 1978, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1991, 2008.

There's a new crater on the Moon. It's about 14 meters wide, 3 meters deep and precisely one month, eleven days old.

NASA astronomers watched it form: "On May 2, 2006, a meteoroid hit the Moon's Sea of Clouds (Mare Nubium) with 17 billion joules of kinetic energy—that's about the same as 4 tons of TNT," says Bill Cooke, the head of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office in Huntsville, AL. "The impact created a bright fireball which we video-recorded using a 10-inch telescope."

They happen all the time. Lack of viewers is the big problem in this regard.

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If it erupts, don't blame me!!

Quite true, that's why I referred to 'observed' and 'recorded'. It's amazing, to me anyway, that the first properly observed and documented (and filmed) such impact event was only in 1994. Even the Tunguska event was unobserved.

I hadn't seen the report on the recent moon impact. Thanks for the heads up!

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Peter
Hawthorn - AFL Premiers 1961, 1971, 1976, 1978, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1991, 2008.

Actually, the Tunguska event was observed!

The cause just wasn't understood at the time.

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Peter
Hawthorn - AFL Premiers 1961, 1971, 1976, 1978, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1991, 2008.

Considering the probable lack of free oxygen on both the Moon and within the meteorite, what caused the fireball?

Still friction.

At only 20 km/s, an impact is close to 45,000 mph.

The kinetic energy of most gas molecules is less than 3 km/s.

The asteroid speed is six times the gas excitation velocity.

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If it erupts, don't blame me!!

Without getting bogged down in scientifica, I'd think a fireball has to involve oxidation, so my thought was, where did the oxygen come from?

Or is it a case of the kinetic energy being transformed into a different form, i.e., heat and light?

Like everything that happens, they've made a movie out of it.

Sit back and be awed (or not) at this masterpiece:

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/video/

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Tony

Well after the Fantastic Storms we have had over the last 2 days here in Melbourne,it could well have been the end of the world,,

The only problem was I did not have the ARK ready,

I was too busy,digging the underground bunker to avoid YU 55

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Nunawading Stamp Fair
Last Sunday of Every Month - Jaycees Hall Silver Grove - Nunawading.

Ron, you need to prioritise your disaster response to manage the correct disaster...obviously.

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Peter
Hawthorn - AFL Premiers 1961, 1971, 1976, 1978, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1991, 2008.

I am working on it.

But I just cannot work out which one will be the worst.

The 21st Dec 2012 or Ms Gillards Carbon TAX

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Nunawading Stamp Fair
Last Sunday of Every Month - Jaycees Hall Silver Grove - Nunawading.

The Carbon Tax arrives sooner (July next year) but you pensioners are all going to be better off as a result, Gillard says so! Honest Injun! Of course (this is where it might all fall apart) she also promised "There will be no tax on carbon on any government I lead". But then, that was an election promise (as opposed to a real promise) and there are many who feel Bob Brown, not Gillard, leads the government (and not just by the nose) anyway.

Hey, wait a minute! Do you think the 21 Dec 2012 disaster might result in an increase in carbon emissions? If we got it moved to Australia it could then be canceled due to the taxes required to be paid!

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Peter
Hawthorn - AFL Premiers 1961, 1971, 1976, 1978, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1991, 2008.

This event was actually happening a few years ago, but Bruce Willis saved the day.

And in another exact same movie, oddly enough made in the exact same year, Morgan Freeman saved the world by mouthing 2,177 platitudes and willing the comet not to hit (but half of it hit anyway)

Norm

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Geelong, VFA Premiers 1878, 1879, 1800, 1882, 1883, 1884, 1886, AFL Premiers 1925, 1931, 1937, 1951, 1952, 1963, 2007, 2009, 2011, .

Please get it right Peter - there are "core" promises and "non-core" promises. But neither of the Parties tell us which is which before the election itself.

Norm

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Geelong, VFA Premiers 1878, 1879, 1800, 1882, 1883, 1884, 1886, AFL Premiers 1925, 1931, 1937, 1951, 1952, 1963, 2007, 2009, 2011, .

Not sure about your Wisdom here Peter..

You see although the Carbon Tax will become LAW in July next Year,its effects will not be seen until about 4-5 months later.
which will not give us very much time,to have a bit of a "Hows your Father" with our 20 cents per week, that Big Julie says we will be better off by,

So by the time the 21st Dec Rocks up, we should have saved at least $4.60.Now,,will that be enough to build my "Family get away Space Ship"
I am told that Holden are going to start a "Build it yourself Kit" which will be avaliable early July 2012. and will be sold through Bunnings Stores and all Good Hobby Shops.

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Nunawading Stamp Fair
Last Sunday of Every Month - Jaycees Hall Silver Grove - Nunawading.