The Art Neuro Weblog

Too Close For Comfort?
The most likely candidate asteroid to hit us is asteroid Toutatis which made a nice, close fly by. It has come the closest to us in 651 years:

Measuring about 3 miles by 1.5 miles, Toutatis will speed by Earth at 22,000
miles per hour.

This asteroid makes a roughly four-year trip around the sun that swings from just inside Earth's orbit to outside the orbit of Mars. Because both Earth and Toutatis are in continual motion, the distance between them at closest approach every four years varies greatly.

On Wednesday, Toutatis will be 250 times brighter than it was two months ago, but it will still be 16 times dimmer than the faintest stars that can be seen with unaided eyes.

Toutatis is named after the god that Asterix and Obelix pray to, in hopes that the sky should not fall upon their heads. Essentially it's a peanut the size of Sydney City waiting to smash into us.

Meanwhile In The 'Promised' Land of Branson
As we noted some weeks ago, the Virgin group is willing to take space tourists on SpaceShipOne.
We bring to you this nay-saying report.

"It is something that is technically possible, but space is a very expensive business, and space tourism is likely to remain an expensive business for a very long time," he said.

"The idea is great, I like the idea, but I am very aware that even people like Nasa find it a challenge. Eventually it will come. Whether it will come in Richard Branson's time, and in his way, remains to be seen," he said.

Like that's not hedging bets, right? What is this commentary? :)

- Art Neuro