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I had my hopes up that the scientists were wrong and that one asteroid actually would hit Earth and cause a mass extinction.
Then when it passed by, I was pretty let down and feeling dejected that the world would continue on like before.
Was anyone else hoping for the asteroid to hit? Is it normal?
its made me feel very vulnerable on a cosmic level.
To be honest at the end of last year I was really down in the dumps and I was one who was hoping the world would somehow end on 21st Dec 2012. I felt like the human race had earnt it, I grew up feeling ashamed of what we'd become as a civilization. We've become uncivilized. Now, however, I have something to live for. I don't want to die. I would encourage you to go out and put some meaning into your own life.
Which field(s) of science would deal with asteroid impacts?
Please do not use -ists or -isms.
An unrelated, but coincidental impactor event did occur, causing minor damage in Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia.
The first firm details of the 15 February asteroid impact in Russia, the largest in more than a century, are becoming clear. ESA is carefully assessing the information as crucial input for developing the Agency's asteroid-hunting effort.
At 03:20 GMT on 15 February, a natural object entered the atmosphere and disintegrated in the skies over Chelyabinsk, Russia. Extensive video records indicate a northeast to southwest path at a shallow angle of 30° above the horizontal. The entry speed is estimated at around 18 km/s – more than 64 000 km/h. According to calculations by Peter Brown at the University of Western Ontario, Canada, drawing on extremely low-frequency sound waves detected by a global network, the object is estimated to have been about 17 m across with a mass of 7000–10 000 tonnes when it hit atmosphere. It exploded with a force of nearly 500 kilotons of TNT – some 30 times the energy released by the Hiroshima atomic bomb – around 15–20 km above the ground. With our current understanding of near-Earth objects, events of this magnitude are expected once every several of tens to 100 years.
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-02-russia-asteroid-impact-esa.html#jCp
The one that passed last Friday wasn't big enough for an extinction level event. It could certainly level a city, but wouldn't have really been life-changing. Comet ISON, on the other hand...
They said another asteroid will probably hit Earth in 2036. Do some research.