Asteroid heading our way Options

[impala454]

But won't hit
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5483161.html

An asteroid at least 500 feet long will make a rare close pass by Earth next week, but there is no chance of an impact, scientists reported today.

That's kinda crazy... within 1.4 times the distance to the moon... I bet it'd be pretty nasty for us if this thing hit the moon.

[impala454]

Air, yes. Acid rain? You have to be kidding me. It doesn't even take the clear coat off my truck and I live next to the biggest oil/chemical refining industry on the planet. I think you may have been watching too many Al Gore movies.

And a 500ft wide projectile would definitely make it through and do more damage than breaking a car window. It obviously wouldn't be apocolyptic, but would still be pretty nasty.

Here's a pretty nifty article talking about sizes and impacts:
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/myst...day_040412.html

An asteroid the size of two football fields, even if stony in nature, is another story. It carves a crater in New Jersey that's 2 miles wide (3.4 kilometers). The resulting earthquake is magnitude 6.4, enough to frighten the pants off New York City emergency planners. A rock this size hits the planet about every 14,000 years.