The asteroid, 2004 xp14, possibly up to a kilometre wide just whizzed past us 2 days back. It was just 432,709km away from us and that figure in astronomical term is counted as a near miss. We have to be grateful that it did not find its way anywhere into the Earth surface, else the consequences will be devastating. Probably "a crater many kilometres across, maybe as much as 10 or 15 km" or one huge tsunami if it were to head for the ocean instead, says the report.Read more here.
And that would mean it came pretty close to our moon orbit too isn't it? What if the asteroid were to hit our moon instead? Wah no moon at night.. Sheesh! No wait, there will more shit other than the lack of moon viewing or your romantic walks under the moonlight crap. The tides, which resulted by the gravitational interaction of the Earth and her moon, will be gone. Furthermore, the kinetic energy transfer between the Earth and the moon due to their rotations will be lost and this will bring about a faster angular momentum in the Earth's orbit and thus a faster rotation. This means that we will experience a faster day time and possibly serveral other consequences which we might not want to even think of. So there, stay where you are, don't come close to my moon either.
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(Via LancerLord)
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