The Great Red Comet         Issue # 46: Volume 5

Giant comet may collide with Earth late October

Note: Comments published By Pravda are the opinions of the writer and/or astronomer Nikolai Fedorovsky and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Skywatch or The Great Red Comet

According to the Russian astronomer Nikolai Fedorovsky, a giant comet flying at top speed is bound for Earth. Should the comet stay on the collision course, it may hit the planet in late October. The impact will cause devastating tsunamis, earthquakes and avalanches, says Fedorovsky. He saw the killer comet in a telescope two weeks ago. He managed to calculate the comet’s trajectory. We got in touch with Nikolai Fedorovsky:

“Just a few people are aware of the fact that comets of various sizes fly past Earth at a very close distance on a regular basis,” says Fedorovsky. “Those comets usually pass by unnoticed. The above circumstance is not a guarantee against disaster by any means. The Tunguska meteorite landed in the wilderness of Siberia. What if the behemoth had plunged into the center of Europe or somewhere in the ocean?

“I’m not trying to scare anybody, I just want to warn the public,” sums up Fedorovsky. “We should pay attention to this suspicious celestial body. We could obtain more accurate calculations if other astronomers join forces. We could also photograph it if we’re in luck. We will probably partake in one of the greatest events in the history of humankind,” adds he.

“We shouldn’t underestimate the threat poised by asteroid and comets,” says Igor Gerasimov, deputy director of the Sternberg Astronomical Institute. “More than a thousand meteorite showers cross Earth's orbit and pose a real threat to life on the planet. We’re watching only nine showers of the above number. Those nine have several dozen objects, which may collide with Earth. The size of the objects varies. Some of them are tiny dust particles while the others have the proportions of gigantic heavenly bodies measuring up to 200 meters in diameter.”

The solar system has about two million asteroids measuring more than 50 meters in diameter in. About 4,000 asteroids of the above category have been discovered so far. The number of those under monitoring is even smaller. In fact, many asteroids and other celestial bodies remain unnoticed until they approach Earth. One of such asteroids was discovered in the process of examination of a picture taken by Hubble Space Telescope in 1998. Some of the asteroids come into view shortly after passing past Earth into the Moon’s orbit. About a dozen asteroids approach Earth presently. They measure more than 5 km in diameter. Scientists estimate the above celestial bodies may collide with Earth once every 20 million years.

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