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COMETS AND ASTEROIDS
AND THE COSMIC CRASH ON JUPITER - 1994
& THE JANUARY 2008 - ASTEROID 2007 TU24
Including reports from Maranatha Prophetic Alert,
July & August 1994
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THE COSMIC CRASH
OF JULY 1994
“A shattered comet is about to hit Jupiter, creating
the biggest explosion ever witnessed
in the solar system. The
cataclysmic explosion will serve as a warning to
Earth. It could happen here!”
These were the headlines of TIME magazine's
cover story (23 May 1994). July
16 was the date scheduled for the crash of
Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9
into Jupiter, the
largest planet in our Solar System. Jupiter, in
fact, is 300 times bigger than the Earth.
The core of the planet is actually about the same
size as the earth, but the mass of the planet
is a 60,000-km-deep
blanket of gas - 90% hydrogen and 10% helium.
The comet (SL9) was discovered on March 25,
1993 by astronomers Eugene and Carolyn
Shoemaker, and David Levy.
Most comets in our system orbit the sun, but SL9 was
evidently enticed into an orbit around
Jupiter in about
1984. The long, elliptical orbit of the comet took
about two years to complete.
Scientists believe that July 1992, as the comet
passed very close to Jupiter, (25,750 km),
it shattered into at
least
21 pieces.
These mountain-sized fragments measuring 1 to 4 km
in width, lined up
something like a "comet train." They were been
described as natural megabombs that
would pepper the huge planet like a round of
automatic gunfire.
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THE COSMIC TRAIN
Hubble Space Telescope
image of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, taken on
May 17,
1994.
When SL9 was discovered in 1993 it was about 40
million km from Jupiter. But now, in 1994,
on its return
journey, SL9 was destined to plunge into the gassy
planet. The comet was travelling at
60 km a second (216,000 km per hour); and the
combined energy of the 21 explosions on Jupiter
would be up to
20,000,000 megatons.
By comparison, the largest hydrogen bomb ever
detonated on earth - by the Soviet Union in 1961 -
was a 50 megaton.
In July 1994, virtually every major telescope in the
world focused on Jupiter. Unfortunately the
comet's first
fragments hit on the back side of the planet, and
thus the first impacts were not seen directly from
earth. But as Jupiter spins quiet fast, the results
came into view shortly after the impacts.
Some of the later results were viewed directly. The
initial impact was photographed by the spacecraft
Galileo which was perched at 240 million km from
Jupiter at the time of the collision.
TIME
said: "Crippled by mechanical problems, Galileo can
take a picture only every 2.3 seconds,
and its
transmissions back to Earth will be painfully slow.
These pictures may not be processed for months."
The results of the impact were awaited eagerly by
the scientific world in particular.
Earlier scientists had come up with different
predictions. Some of the possibilities were:
*
Meteor showers.
The 21 fragments could begin to disintegrate as soon
as they hit Jupiter's upper atmosphere.
The break-up could
create spectacular "fireworks."
*
Crack-up and shock wave.
Because of the speed of the comet, the entry would
create shock waves, and "the whole planet would ring
like a bell."
*
The chunks of the comet could plunge about 25 km
into the planet,
causing a nuclear explosion and a massive fireball
which would literally blow a hole in the Jovial
atmosphere.
*
The comet's fragments could plunge as deep as 300 km
into the gaseous and liquid interior of the planet,
creating a mushroom cloud that would rise 2,4000 km
above the planet, and causing a flash that would
make Jupiter twice
as bright as normal, and an
atmospheric vortex (whirlwind)
that would last 100 years.
There were, of course, some prophets of gloom and
doom who were warning that the collision will have
drastic results on earth. Astronomer-religious
mystic, Sofia Maria Gabriel Richmond, for one, said
a fireball from Jupiter will head towards the earth.
These cosmic events, she said,
will serve as a final warning ultimatum from God to
all governments to turn to reduce their crime,
cruelty and
corruption.
But it was the secular TIME magazine's alarm
that could not be easily dismissed: "If such a comet
train hit one of Earth's oceans, tidal waves would
deluge and destroy the closest coastlines.
If it hit land, it
could incinerate whole countries and kick up a cloud
of dust that would blot out the sun and bring on
nuclear winter. Millions, perhaps BILLIONS, of
people would die ...
The cataclysmic explosion will serve as a warning
to Earth.
It could happen here."
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JULY 2004
BATTERED AND MARRED !
Scientists were not disappointed. It was more
spectacular than most predicted. It was an inferno
on the giant planet - the most violent event in the
Solar System ever recorded by man.
It had a wallop of millions of megatons of nuclear
power. Some of the fireballs were, for some moments,
brighter than the whole planet, and some of the hot
spots on Jupiter were as big as the earth.
Some of the colour pictures released were brilliant.
Yes, Jupiter was battered and marred; and I am glad
I was not on the giant planet in July 1994! And I
don't want to be on earth during the Great
Tribulation, when the earth's turn to be peppered by
asteroids comes!
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Jupiter in Ultraviolet (about 2.5 hours after the
impact)
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Impact sites on Jupiter
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WHAT IF A COMET HITS EARTH?
After the Jupiter impact, TIME
magazine repeated its earlier warning :
AUG 1, 94. "Imagine that one of Shoemaker-Levy 9's
bigger pieces - a mile of two in diameter - is
streaking in at 209,000 km/h, except that the target
is not Jupiter but EARTH.
This mammoth chunk of rock and ice tears through the
atmosphere and smashes into the ground with the
force of 6 million H-bombs, gouging out a crater
some 65 km in diameter and throwing so much
pulverized real estate into the stratosphere that
the sun is blocked for months and Earth goes into a
worldwide deep freeze.
If the comet hits an ocean, a pall of dust rises
from underwater sediment, and
a tidal wave about 900 m high
races
across the sea and hundreds of kilometres inland.”
If that sounds like science fiction, think again.
Comets and asteroids have crashed into Earth in the
past. Craters marking the points of impact are
mostly hidden by vegetation, their edges softened by
erosion. But the size of some of the holes suggest
that Earth has been hit by intruders
some 5 km in diameter - as big as S-L 9 before it
broke up.
There are about 2,000 large bodies that cross the
orbit of Earth, which could, in theory, hit us. That
is why Shoemaker and his colleagues have for years
been urging a stepped-up program to search for
Earth-crossing comets and asteroids. Now S-L 9 has
spurred the U.S. Congress to listen.
Last week (in 1994) the U.S. House of
Representatives Sub-committee on Science, Technology
and Space added an amendment to the NASA
appropriation bill requiring the space agency to
come up with a plan to find and catalogue all
menacing heavenly intruders within a decade.
What if one turns out to be on a collision course
with Earth? Star Wars scientists think a nuclear
warhead, sent out to blow the comet off course,
might work, but others doubt it.
Even if no one has a good answer yet, U.S. lawmakers
have taken the first step: acknowledging that the
threat is real."
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THE NEAR IMPACT of March 23, 1989
Scientist, newspapers and movies are regularly
telling us about the threat to the earth from
asteroids. Some of
the articles I have with me say that there are tens
of thousands of asteroids that form an
"asteroid belt"
around the sun. And there are asteroids bombarding
our planetary space every day.
Most of these "stars" burn up in the high
atmosphere. But sooner or later a big one will get
through and cause colossal damage to the earth.
In fact there was an asteroid that almost hit the
earth on
March 23, 1989.
It missed
us by
six hours.
If it had hit the earth it would have been the
equivalent to
1 million atom bombs.
It
could have wiped out whole cities, or, if it had hit
the sea, it would have created tidal waves
hundreds of meters high, and washed away whole
islands. – TIME 1989
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THE CLOSEST PASS BY A RECENT ASTEROID
According to the Paris-based International Astronomical Union (IAU), the closest detected approach by an asteroid was on March 31, 2004
by 2004 FU162, which came within 6,500 kms (4,000 miles) of Earth.
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ASTEROID MISSES MARS
On January 30, (2008), another asteroid “2007 WD5” had a close encounter with the planet Mars. It came to within 26,000 kms
(16,250 miles) of Mars,
a distance that is less than a whisker in space terms. Initial calculations had suggested the object may collide with the red planet.
But it gave Mars a miss. Measuring about 50 metres (165 feet) across, it would have delivered an impact equivalent to a
three-mega-tonne nuclear weapon. A rock of that size exploded over Tunguska, Siberia, in 1908, felling around 80 million trees
over 2,200 square
kms (850 square miles).
The dangers, according to scientists and
astronomers, are very real indeed. But actually,
most scientists don't realise the real
danger that
lies ahead! They don't read the Bible! The real
danger is not merely of
a single comet, meteor or asteroid,
or group of such
objects hitting the earth. The prophecies
above are speaking about an upheaval in the
universe, and of the earth being pelted by dozens or
hundreds "stars" - space objects.
This, of course, is scheduled to happen during the
Great Tribulation. It is all part of the judgment of
this present rebellious planet.
More important than TIME magazine scenarios, and
newspaper reports, however, are the Bible's
prophecies.
The Word
of YHWH, the Almighty, says a cosmic upheaval WILL
take place, and it
will
shake the earth - on a scheduled day in the end
times – during the Great Tribulation: |
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BIBLE PROPHECIES
LUKE 21:25-26
"And there will be signs in the sun and moon and
stars, and upon earth despair among nations,
with perplexity at
the roaring and tossing of the sea. Men's hearts
will faint from terror, being apprehensive of what
is coming upon the world; for the very powers
of
the heavens will be shaken."
HAGGAI 2:6-7
"For thus says YHWH of Hosts, 'In a little while I
will once more shake the heavens and the earth, the
sea and the dry land. And
I will shake all the nations
..."
REVELATION 6:12-17
"I watched as He broke the sixth seal; and there was
a great earthquake; and the sun turned black as
sackcloth made of hair, and the whole moon became
blood-red; and
the stars of
the sky fell to earth,
as a fig tree casts its unripe figs when shaken by a
strong wind. The sky vanished like a scroll being
rolled up; and every mountain and island were moved
out of its place.
"Then the kings of the earth, the great men, the
generals, the rich, the mighty, and every slave and
free man hid themselves in the caves and among the
rocks of the mountains. They called to the mountains
and to the rocks, 'Fall on us and hide us from the
presence of Him (the Almighty) who sits on
the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; for the
great day of His wrath has come; and who is able to
stand before it?"
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But TODAY is the DAY OF SALVATION!
"Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance,
God now commands all people everywhere
to repent (that is, to change their minds and to
amend their ways with abhorrence for their sins),
because
He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world
in righteousness through a Man whom
He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men
by raising Him from the dead."
(Acts 17:30-31)
FOR SALVATION MESSAGE, READ ARTICLE,
“THE WAY TO GOD”
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