Looking Back

1861: London's first train cars pulled by horses.
1888: The Football League.
1919: Fascism becomes a political movement in Italy.
1921: Donald Campbell is born.
1933: Enabling Act in Germany.
1966: Pope VI and Dr Ramsey have a meeting🤔
1971: Bangladesh go it alone.
1983: Ronald Reagan & Star Wars😑
1889: Near miss with an Asteroid.
2001: Mir crashes into the Pacific just off Fuji.
2021: Woke is the new woke😒

Just saying🤷‍♂️🚬

@hells-caretaker said
1889: Near miss with an Asteroid.

The capital A refers to the video game Asteroids, presumably. It involved multiple, multiple near misses, the same sweaty palms as I got from doing smack, and many the unsavoury utterance in Anglo Saxon.

@fmf said
The capital A refers to the video game Asteroids, presumably. It involved multiple, multiple near misses, the same sweaty palms as I got from doing smack, and many the unsavoury utterance in Anglo Saxon.

"Smack"? Sounds like something one did, in the old days, to a petulant child.

@Hells-Caretaker

Do you need more red string and push pins?

@fmf said
The capital A refers to the video game Asteroids, presumably. It involved multiple, multiple near misses, the same sweaty palms as I got from doing smack, and many the unsavoury utterance in Anglo Saxon.

No honest. A 1,000-foot[edit] Diameter asteroid missed Earth by a mere 400,000 miles.

@kevin-eleven said
@Hells-Caretaker

Do you need more red string and push pins?

err🤔gimmie some more rope on that it's chicken soup?

@hells-caretaker said
err🤔gimmie some more rope on that it's chicken soup?

as in someone connecting the dots in a room papered with photos, maps, and newspaper clippings . . .

@hells-caretaker said
No honest. A 1,000-foot[edit] Diameter asteroid missed Earth by a mere 400,000 miles.

Apophis is coming back

@kevin-eleven said
as in someone connecting the dots in a room papered with photos, maps, and newspaper clippings . . .

So you know about it as well🙌

@lemondrop
When? I need to update my charts.

@hells-caretaker said
@lemondrop
When? I need to update my charts.

Bottom line: Asteroid Apophis will sweep past Earth on March 5-6, 2021, its closest pass before it buzzes by in 2029. The large asteroid is noteworthy for its extremely close approaches to Earth in 2029, 2036 and 2068. Observations show any impact this century is unlikely.Mar. 4, 2021

-VR

@hells-caretaker said
No honest. A 1,000-foot[edit] Diameter asteroid missed Earth by a mere 400,000 miles.

You have to admit that if you were out by that much on your way to the pub you'd be disappointed though.

@hells-caretaker said
No honest. A 1,000-foot[edit] Diameter asteroid missed Earth by a mere 400,000 miles.

The moon is only 238,000 miles away.

@suzianne said
The moon is only 238,000 miles away.

Indeed, although that distance varies of course.

Distances and areas in the space above the earth become literally err...astronomical in scale the further out you travel.

Think of a square mile on the surface of our spherical planet and consider that is it of course a curved plane, which if extended upwards quickly becomes a huge area. We think about the distance to the moon in terms of linear distances on earth, but the sheer volume of empty space between us and the moon cannot be represented by a simple linear distance.

At 400,000 miles out from the earth the volume of space within that sphere is mind boggling and the chances of a rock entering that gigantic sphere and hitting the tiny earth at the centre of it is infinitesimally small.

Of course there is always gravity to help 👍🏻

@suzianne said
The moon is only 238,000 miles away.

True more or less,
It's driven by the effect of the Moon's gravity on the rotating Earth. Tides raised in the oceans cause drag and thus slow the Earth's spin-rate. The resulting loss of angular momentum is compensated for by the Moon speeding up, and thus moving further away.

-VR