Fortunately for the Martians, there are no Martians.

Dog--

Dog--

The Freeman
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With so much trouble plaguing our poor world right now, we could all use a break. Let's dwell on somebody else's misery for a change.

We mean cataclysmic misery. Earth-shattering misery, if it were on Earth.

Fortunately for us, the trouble in question is on Mars.



Look up at the eastern sky this evening and you'll see a bright reddish star staring back at you without blinking or twinkling. That is Mars.

On Jan. 30 at 5:56 a.m., give or take a few minutes, Mars stands a slim but real chance of getting hit by an asteroid the size of a football field, traveling faster than a bullet. That cosmic cannonball packs a punch equal to a 3 megaton nuclear bomb. The impact would dig a crater a half-mile wide and throw that huge gob of Mars high into the Martian sky, according to asteroid watchers at NASA.

The odds of Mars getting hit were put at 1 in 75 last week, but fine-tuning has now upped the odds to only 1 in 25. Most likely, NASA says, further refinement of the asteroid's path will show it narrowly missing Mars. But, the possibility of a catastrophic collision remains real. Fortunately for the Martians, there are no Martians.

So, without any hint of guilt, scientists are rooting for the asteroid and against Mars. Turning part of Mars inside out would give us a peek at what lies beneath the surface of the red planet because it will get kicked up by the asteroid. In short, misfortune for Mars could be a scientific jackpot for science on Earth.

NASA says there is no chance of the asteroid, blandly named 2007 WD5, popping our planet.

But before you feel smug and safe, it's a good bet that when (not if) Earth takes another hit from an asteroid, as it has many times over the ages, we'll never see it coming, or see it too late. That will be nasty. WD5 carries the wallop of the so-called Tunguska object, possibly an asteroid, that exploded over Siberia in 1908, wiping out 60 million trees, according to NASA.

When WD5 was discovered by a NASA-backed telescope near Tucson, Ariz., on Nov. 20, calculations showed that it has already come within 5 million miles of Earth at its nearest approach. Nobody saw it before that.

Efforts are being made to keep track of asteroids that come close to Earth, and if anything, WD5 blasting into Mars could have the benefit of winning support for beefing up Earth's own asteroid early warning system. It needs beefing up. We don't want a bad surprise falling out of the sky on us.
Click to expand...

Look on the bright side, never again will we be invaded by Mars..
 
aww... My bad...

My title is better, though.
 
I don't see what the big deal is. This thing isn't any bigger than the Tungusta event.
 
Dog-- > [Matt]
Yeah.
Anyway, **** Mars. What has it ever done for us?
 
It gave us Red numbnuts.




Also a load of craptastic to meh SciFi channel originals and some meh films.
 
I would be thrilled if this thing actually made contact with mars...besides giving us information about celestial collisions, think of the photographs..
 
Think of the Adventure games!
"You are a Martian, and an asteroid has hit your invisible colony. NOW, AS THE ONLY SURVIVOR, YOU MUST-"
blahalblahla
 
NO! Take revenge on earthlings for no apparent reason.
 
NO! Mars is not a good place. There are things in there... things we can't see... <suspense music starts>
 
They can... kill us all <more suspense music>
 
In 69 days the truth shall be revealed... <horror music>
 
Raziaar said:
I don't see what the big deal is. This thing isn't any bigger than the Tungusta event.
Click to expand...
To be fair, Mars is considerably smaller than earth, so it's a rather bigger deal for them.
 
Tomorrow, I will eat Cheerios. <EPIC PANIC MUSIC>

It's Mars, it'll make a 2 month planet-wide storm then it's back to normal. meh.
 
They lasted longer than intended didnt they? Its not as huge of a loss if they were supposed to break a while ago.
 
They'll probably, and hopefully get some shots. It would be really cook to have the meteor in visible range of the rovers.
 
the mars rovers originally had a 90 day mission and anything after that was considered a bonus with both rovers not expecting to last longer than 3 months. Not bad for a pair of rovers that landed 4 years ago with spirit celebrating its 4th birthday on Friday!
 
Feel sorry for the martians, they probably think its us attacking them :p
 
wonder if they call earth by a different name?? maybe klendathu
 
If the timing and geometry were just right, there is a chance that one of the probes would be in the right place to see the asteroid enter the atmosphere and slam into the ground.

"This is a long shot, but if everything worked out ? you could see the trail as the thing comes blazing through the atmosphere and there would be a fireball extending down the trajectory of the thing, and then there's the impact, which is an explosive process," he says.

http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn13129-asteroid-may-hit-mars-in-january.html

Man that would be sweet but if the asteroid miss's Mars, Apophis has a "1 in 37 chance of it hitting Earth in 2036. Although further observations later dropped that to 1 in 45,000"

;)
 
I'd LOL if we were ready to send people to Mars cause Earth was overpopulated and suddenly out of the blue an asteroid hit Mars and ****ed it up.

Everyone would be like "...****".
 
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