Heads Up . . . Again!

[PPI Karl]

And, coming up, after the break . . .


"An asteroid about the size of a car will pass close by Earth Wednesday (Feb. 9[, 2011]), the second space rock in five days to fly near?but pose no threat of hitting?our planet.

The asteroid is called 2011 CA7 and will fly within 64,300 miles (103,480 kilometers) of Earth tomorrow, according to an alert from NASA's Asteroid Watch program. It is about 9 1/2 feet across (nearly 3 meters) and was discovered by astronomers earlier this month.

The asteroid will make its closest pass by Earth at around 2:25 p.m. EST (1925 GMT), according to the small-body database overseen by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif."

http://www.youtube.com/v/QBqc99vRVms?fs=1&hl=en_US

[PPI Tim]

Oh c'mon Karl,
What come possibly happen to the earth of a little old rock fell out of the sky?

[PPI Tracy]

Hold your breath.....we have 5 mins to impact..........

[PPI Brian]

I'd say that video clearly depicts what planetary scientists refer to as an ELE -- Extinction Level Event. The impact crater depicted in this simulated impact is roughly equal to the size of Herschel Crater on Saturn's moon Mimas. Astronomers are still wondering why the impact didn't completely destroy the tiny moon:

[PPI Tim]

You can't fool me. That is a picture of the Death Star.

[PPI Jason]

"That's no moon. That's a space station."

[PPI Brian]

The similarities are striking.  

[PPI Karl]

Let's not forget Lucas's main inspiration for the Death Star:

[PPI Tracy]

CHEERS! 

[PPI Tim]

OMG!
It's the DEATH olive.
Really, Lucas's idea for the DeathStar came from a olive?

[PPI Brian]

When I was a kid I spent a lot of time in my backyard staring up at the night sky. My mom and dad bought me a Newtonian reflector telescope for christmas, and I was hooked on astronomy from that point forward. At that time the only object I could locate successfully was the moon. Not knowing any better, I spent most every clear night frying my retinas on the full moon. Apollo 11 had yet to land on the moon, and the news was buzzing about our space program. I remember reading in my astronomy books in the most matter-of-fact terms that the craters and Mare on the surface of the moon were caused by internal volcanism. The Apollo program swept those theories aside virtually overnight. The returned samples of moon rocks created a new field of science -- planetary geology -- and inspired radical new theories about the formation of our moon. Amazingly enough, the evidence indicates our moon was created from a cataclysmic collision between the Earth and an object roughly the size of Mars. This collision nearly anhiliated the early Earth, but without it life may have never arisen on our world. The tidal forces the moon exerts on our planet keep it "alive".  

http://www.youtube.com/v/c0FCE4H0Dro

[PPI Karl]

OMG!
It's the DEATH olive.
Really, Lucas's idea for the DeathStar came from a olive?

Well, the decor was a little stuffy, as I recall.  However, I wouldn't exactly quote me on the olive idea.

I'm especially piqued by the theories of the moon's importance to life arising on our planet, and only very recently did I bump into some astrophysical arguments that the size of our moon--that is, its unusual Moon-Earth size ratio compared to other moons and their parent bodies--might be a factor to consider in the search for habitable extrasolar worlds. 

One of my favorite B-52s lyrics:  "There's a moon in the sky, and it's called 'The Moon'."

[PPI Tracy]

I think Fred Shneider was tired that day.  (I love them no matter what)


Kind of like Van Halen:  "Only time will tell if we stand the test of time".         Oooooweee!  Genius!

[PPI Jason]

Another fascinating inter-planetary thought is not just how meteors and comets bring death to a planet but the very idea that they could have also brought life here as well. The idea that many of the heavier elements needed to create the building blocks of life could have been brought to Earth by comet and asteroid strikes is something I never considered until I heard about it several years ago. The very idea that many of the elements were probably produced in giant super blue giant stars, which were then shot out across the galaxy after supernovas, and then accumulated into planets and new stars or transported by intergalactic travelers just blows my mind. The idea that we are really made of "star dust" is a fascinating idea. I just wonder if it's true....

[PPI Brian]

Another fascinating inter-planetary thought is not just how meteors and comets bring death to a planet but the very idea that they could have also brought life here as well. The idea that many of the heavier elements needed to create the building blocks of life could have been brought to Earth by comet and asteroid strikes is something I never considered until I heard about it several years ago. The very idea that many of the elements were probably produced in giant super blue giant stars, which were then shot out across the galaxy after supernovas, and then accumulated into planets and new stars or transported by intergalactic travelers just blows my mind. The idea that we are really made of "star dust" is a fascinating idea. I just wonder if it's true....

It's an undeniable fact -- as Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson said: "We are all connected; to each other biologically; to the Earth chemically; to the rest of the universe atomically."

As Carl Sagan so elequently framed it: "The cosmos is also within us. We're made of star stuff. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself."

http://www.youtube.com/v/XGK84Poeynk