Earthbound asteroid will graze us next month

Don't you just hate it when an asteroid strikes Earth and wipes out all life? Well don't worry--it isn't going to happen . . . just yet, but there will probably come a time when it will.

Anyway, a huge, 3-mile-wide asteroid is diddy bopping its way through the galaxy and heading in our way. It will graze Earth on December 17th, but will not hit us . . . this go around. 

The asteroid is named "3200 Phaethon" after the Greek god, and it will come quite close in astronomical terms.

The Russian astronomers [with the possible help of Michael Flynn] have been tracking this baby's path, which NASA describes as a "potentially hazardous asteroid."

If it hits us it's 'goodbye to Momma,' as I once heard a Gunny Sergeant tell his men in Vietnam during a mortar attack near our liquid oxygen converters. The converters, (aka 'LOX Converters') provides oxygen to pilots at high altitude and they make quite a fireball if hit, much like the Earth would if an asteroid hit us.

However, the asteroid will pass us by at only 2 million miles--practically a kiss on the cheek in astronomical terms.

It is about half the size of the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs, not counting those that still exist in the Democratic Party.

The first asteroid Ceres, was discovered in 1801 by Giuseppe Piazzi. There are about 600,000 asteroids in our solar system and they orbit the sun. 

The 3200 Phaethon asteroid is special as it has aspects of both an asteroid and a comet. Scientists previously spotted plumes of dust from behind it, which is quite similar to the melting ice tails that trail comets.

The Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University, in Konigsberg, Russia, which first began tracking the asteroid said in a statement, "Apparently, this asteroid was once a much bigger object." But of course, they said it in Russian and went on to add, "But its many approaches to the sun have caused it to crumble into smaller pieces which eventually formed this meteor shower."

Keep your fingers crossed.


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