Hi guys

Thanks for the comments. I did do some research into both land and sea strikes and came up with quite a bit of info but since it was such a short piece I didn't have room to go into detail. At the end of the day, we all know it would be very bad for mankind either way so I saw it as a secondary issue and concentrated instead on the facts and figures that readers might not know. I was especially indebted to Brian Marsden at the Minor Planet Center and William Bottke, both of whom I spoke to on the phone. It was something of an honour to speak to Brian because he's often on those asteroid documentaries that get made every so often.

I haven't looked into the subject matter since then although it does still interest me. Incidentally, it was slated for the October 2001 issue which was why I chose that date for the asteroid strike. I used Starry Night Pro 3 to create a fake asteroid and simulated it's path to see where it went. Truthfully, since it came under the gravitational influence of Jupiter, the Sun and Mercury at some time or other, it probably wouldn't have hit the Earth at all since I was unable to simulate the changes in the orbit. So for the purposes of the article, those bodies had no gravitational influence at all LOL

I named the discoverer after my "big sis" Tomi Andrews in Wisconsin. She got a kick out of discovering the asteroid that would bring Armageddon to Earth LOL

Dips

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"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe... Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion... I've watched c-beams glitter in the dark, near the Tanhauser Gate... all those moments will be lost, in time... like tears in the rain..."