Ok preppers, here it comes!

[4excal]

Start selling survival gear and ammo at an obscene mark up in 2023.

My .10 22lr rounds are definitely gonna be hoarded to be sold at .20 per round in 5 years

 

[Mk44]

Sit back and watch the show.

If it does hit earth- we're all toast anyway.

 

[Bushmaster]

What do you do?

Scientists ‘can’t rule out’ collision with asteroid flying by Earth in 2029

load up and get FUAC before it hit's !!! Oh and I would make sure he first see's that it is a UGLY ASS NYS LEGAL AR15.

 

[Calculon]

What do you think will be best to divert it? 9mm? 45ACP? 40S&W?

 

[Drinkthekoolaid]

What do you think will be best to divert it? 9mm? 45ACP? 40S&W?

Well if it's an asteroid made of a lot of iron, we all know .45acp 's kryptonite is frying pans.
Frying pans might be cast iron. Enough .45acp rounds would disperse all their energy into the asteroid instead of passing through. With enough rounds it could alter its trajectory.

 

[pjzwtl]

We can stand on our roofs and shoot at it!

you may start an intergalactic war..oh wait wrong movie

 

[FrankenCub]

The article itself says they CAN rule it out hitting on its next pass.

As for asteroids the gov can't hide things like this, tons of amateurs out there. Also, if an asteroid of significant size was going to hit we would have many years warning and I do believe we could knock it off course with nukes. The further out it is tapped, the less force needed to do it. AFAIK there are no asteroids of meaningful size set to hit the globe for a very, very long time, and our technology keeps getting better anyway to knock them off.

There isn't as many amateur astronomers out there that can find and track asteroids as you may think. Finding one, alone, takes thousands of images and purpose written software for a substantial computer. That's assuming that it is catching some light from our Sun. Finding a dark rock in dark space isn't something many astronomers can do. The bigger college based observatories with huge budgets and grants are these astronomers will be. With no light hitting them it's going to be up to those with really advanced radio telescopes. Again, colleges, NASA, etc. Big money equipment.
I can assure you, the rank and file amateur astronomer isn't going to find one. Our gear just isn't up to the task.

Using nukes to deflect an asteroid is for movies only. You take an end of times sized rock and nuke it, you now have multiple rocks coming in to spread the destruction. Even one big enough to completely destroy a city will now destroy multiple cities. They wont risk it. They are testing other ways like hitting them with a laser, the localized heat will cause a push in the rock, or parking a substantially heavy object near the asteroid. The minor gravitational pull will be enough to steer it far enough away.

 

[Blimey]

Timely news! Nasa is going to run a test against knocking a small asteroid (meteroid? dunno...) out of the way in five years.

NASA unveils plan to test asteroid defense technique