The Killer Asteroid Apophis: Let’s make some fun of it

Gee, -you’ve all heard about this ‘killer asteroid’ that is projected to pass close to Earth in the year 2029? Yeah, this asteroid is supposed to drop lower than some manmade communication satellites in orbit. This is not good! I’m not sure if this is as bad a threat as it seems at face value. A miss is a miss. At one point, projections had this asteroid possibly hitting the moon. But either way I bet it is going to seriously mess with television reception at the very least!

On Friday, April 13, 2029, this asteroid called 99942 Apophis is going blow by Earth at para-hypersonic speeds and it has a one-in-several-thousand chance of actually hitting the planet. I have also seen odds predicted as high as 2 1/2%. Odds vary greatly on the likelihood of an impact, but this one-in-several-thousand seems to be the current, most quoted odds. It is about the same odds as a recent study that showed a possible 1 or 2% chance that the gravitational pull of Jupiter might tug the planet Mercury out of orbit and send it careening wildly through the inner solar system, potentially hitting Earth at some point! This was something thought virtually impossible, but a computer-generated simulation did produce those results.

A Rose by Any Other Name…

“99942 Apophis” is the name of this rock. The previous or ‘provisional designation’ of this asteroid was 2000 MN4. According to Wikipedia, a “provisional designation” in astronomy is:

…the naming convention applied to astronomical objects immediately following their discovery. The provisional designation is usually superseded by a permanent designation once a reliable orbit has been calculated.

Okay, -kind of ‘STARGATE SG:1-ish’, this permanent designation, eh? How about we just get informal and permanent and use the first name for this bitch and call the asteroid “Apophis”.

Personally, I am not surprised that Apophis the asteroid returns a second (and possibly third or even fourth?) time. I mean, -if you watched the science fiction program “STARGATE” SG-1” how many times did they kill the Goa’uld Apophis only to have him return? It was becoming rather a tongue-in-cheek gag to have him come back again and again!

Gonna Love ya Again

If the asteroid Apophis misses the us the first time, it comes back for a second go. The words from the “Dr. Hook” song “A Little Bit More” keeps coming into mind.

“…when you think I’ve loved you all I can, I’m gonna love you a little bit more!”

Estimated to be some 1300 feet in diameter, this is one giant hunk of rock-hard flaming love out there coming at ya with a smile on his face!

If it misses Earth on the first pass, seven years later it whips back around for another go at us. It is predicted to pass through a ‘gravity keyhole’ (that sounds kinda sexy, huh?) on the first pass, which will set us up for yet another near-miss on April 13^th (again, Friday the 13th!), 2036. Damn! I’ll be 68 or 75 years old during each of these respective visits, -long-retired and probably working as a Greeter at Wal-Mart by then! Or, a Vice-Assistant Co-Executive Manager in charge of Day-Shift Production at Burger King (“grill cook” to everyone else.) Now there is something else really swell to look forward to, huh?

Either way, if this pig enters our atmosphere it comes in hotter than red-hot, hotter than white-hot. It would enter the atmosphere in the purple-violet color spectrum range. It would happen faster than our ability to discern or witness it. The demise would be quick. The shock wave and firestorm would spread around the entire planet in something like a half hour. Great.

But both times, -Friday the 13th is the predicted day of possible impact? What is the deal here with Friday the 13^th, anyway?

Friday the 13^th

This whole “Friday the 13^th” going on is just weird. A lot of ‘bad things’ have Friday the 13^th movies? I never really got into those but I suppose that someone must have, -they made quite a few of them. Thirteen of them, maybe? I don’t know… I stopped counting or caring long ago.

I do have to admit that I sort of liked the “Friday the 13^th” television series, though.

The premise here was that a shopkeeper had sold his soul to the Devil for prosperity and to achieve this, he sold ‘Devil cursed’ artifacts, antiques etc. to customers. But this shopkeeper had a conscience, he recanted later in life and tried to buy back all the cursed items. He had kept an (illegal?) record of the cursed objects and to whom they were sold. The Devil eventually collected on his wager and the shopkeeper was taken away to Hell.

The inheritor of the Antique Shop and his colleagues found this book, recognized what had happened and set upon themselves to continue to buy-back all the ‘possessed objects’ as the old man had been doing, and lock these cursed artifacts safely away. Yeah, -it was good fare for television watching when you’re single, young and bored.

Friday the 13^th was also used in another Science Fiction series back in the 1975, “SPACE: 1999”. On September 13^th, 1999, a Friday if I am not mistaken, the spent nuclear waste of the world is being stored in ‘landfills’ located safely on the far side of the moon. These overheated and ignited. Like rocket engines, this propelled good ol’ Luna out of Earth orbit along with the 311 inhabitants of Moonbase Alpha, whom were stationed on the base on the other side of the moon (the side facing Earth.) And thus, starting a rather short-lived (3 years?) albeit interesting series as the moon-ship was now traveling through the galaxy as a rogue world.

Again, as a teenager I watched and rather liked this show. At least, I watched the first season. My local broadcast television station did not carry the second season in syndication and from reviews of the episodes, I can understand why.

But September 13^th was an interesting day to pick as this is actress Barbara Bain’s birthday. She co-starred in this short-lived series with then-husband Martin Landau. Anyway…

Global Warming Warning

So basically, the next time some bunny-hugger Che Guevara T-shirt wearing Global Warming doomsday predictor wearing free-range leather (or “pleather” more likely!) strappy open-top sandals chooses to engage me in futile and pointless debate regarding ‘global warming’, I’m just going to lift one leg and rip loose a wanton animal fart. –Let that eat a hole in the ozone, tofu boy! If this asteroid thing is for real, then I am not going to be too worried about carbon dioxide or any other greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere this decade or next… Really, I’m not. Suck it up and enjoy the few remaining years that we have left. We’re might have a much bigger and deadlier issue at hand to deal with within our lifetime.