World Affairs Brief, July 22, 2011 Commentary and Insights on a Troubled World. Copyright Joel Skousen. Partial quotations with attribution permitted. Cite source as Joel Skousen’s World Affairs Brief (http://www.worldaffairsbrief.com)
THIS WEEK’S ANALYSIS:
The Government Shutdown Lie
Phone Hijacking Scandal Exposes Media-Gov Links
CIA Still Running Secret Prisons
Debt Dominos Starting to Fall in Europe
War with Iran Heating Up
The Navy’s Chronic Readiness Problems
False Threats of Astronomical Collisions
[…]
FALSE THREATS OF ASTRONOMICAL COLLISIONS
I get a lot of emails from subscribers concerned about a variety of threats being hyped on the internet. I’m not buying the current threats about imminent collision of the earth with either of two huge asteroids and at least one comet. These bodies are real but are not coming close enough to do any harm. On NASA’s Ask an Astrobiologist site, some answers are proffered:
“Both Comet Elenin and Asteroid Apophis are real, but these concerns about collisions are without foundation. Unfortunately there are a few popular websites that are known for suggesting multiple catastrophes, including popularizing the 2012 hoax. Two that show up in any search for Comet Elenin are godlikeproductions and abovetopsecret, both of which predict either a very close pass by Earth or a collision. If instead you consult dependable websites like skyandtelescope you will find that Comet Elenin will come nowhere near the Earth. At its closest (on 10 September 2011) it will be more than 25 million km from our planet.
“Astro-scientists measure celestial distances in our orbit by AU’s, or astronomical units. Initially, Comet Elenin was predicted to pass earth 25 AU’s away from earth. That distance was narrowed to .15 AUs, the 25 million km the Astrobiologist mentioned. How far is .15 AUs in real distance? 13 million miles. The sun is 92 million miles away. Elenin’s debris trail could be rather large so for the people on earth on September when Elenin arrives, it could well be a very bad day [actually, comet debris will burn up in the atmosphere and put on a great light show]. On the other hand, the miss distance could be comfortable and simply put on a good show for backyard astronomers.”
