
This Asteroid Shouldn’t Be Where Astronomers Found It - montrose
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/10/science/asteroid-kuiper-belt.html
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ghgr
Interesting how the New York Times is following the Taboola-like structure of
clickbaity headlines. Maybe it's where the money is after all.

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isostatic
I'd love to read this page, but my subconscious won't allow me to follow a
link with that title.

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symmitchry
Like all articles about space, the headlines was 1000 x more exciting than the
contents.

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howard941
It was worth the click to get to the article's embedded link to this article
about the "Grand Tack" [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/jupiter-
destroyer...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/jupiter-destroyer-of-
worlds-may-have-paved-the-way-for-earth/)

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ukulele
I've often wondered: is it possible for a grouping of asteroids to have a
highly elliptical orbit and pass Earth's distance to the sun _very_
infrequently, say every X million years?

Is it possible that there is some very regular chance that the Earth would get
pummelled, but only on extremely long time spans? How would we know or not
know?

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askvictor
Isn't that pretty much the orbit of a comet?

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ukulele
I think many that we know about have orbits in the thousands of years or less,
with some known in the millions. But would it be possible for a huge grouping
or sequence of them to maintain such an orbit together?

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theoh
Meteorite showers are pretty much that, aren't they?

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ggm
"The model astronomers had about where things should be had to be updated"

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bookofjoe
Heechee

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osrec
Wasn't this on HN a few days ago?

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douglaswlance
Naughty asteroid!

