Re: Why NASA Chose Potentially Threatening Asteroid for Ne...

[Guest guest]

That's pretty far out. There is one called Apophis (sp) that will be passing by in a decade or two. Also, there are some pretty big asteroid out there that would be easier targets. There is Eros at about 23 miles long, Vespa at 300 and Ceres at 500 or so. The Trojan asteroid groups leading and trail the Earth's orbit around the sun are fairly stationary, relative to the Earth, and reasonably close by. Landing on them could also prove useful, especially if some are rich, metallic asteroids.

In a message dated 5/29/2011 11:17:44 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, no_reply writes:

Why NASA Chose Potentially Threatening Asteroid for New Mission

[Guest guest]

Maybe this one is the biggest threat. Also, it's easy to make these sorts of

promises when the actual adventure may not even get started for a long time yet.

Administrator

That's pretty far out. There is one called Apophis (sp) that will be passing by

in a decade or two. Also, there are some pretty big asteroid out there that

would be easier targets. There is Eros at about 23 miles long, Vespa at 300 and

Ceres at 500 or so. The Trojan asteroid groups leading and trail the Earth's

orbit around the sun are fairly stationary, relative to the Earth, and

reasonably close by. Landing on them could also prove useful, especially if some

are rich, metallic asteroids.