He means the object before the collision. If you watch the video, you see the object has a distinct deep-red glow while it’s still quite a way out. This is just artistic license; a real asteroid, even one that size, wold be dead cold.
After impact, though, you bet there’d be a glow.
It might glow a bit while it was going through the atmosphere from atmospheric friction, but yes, most of the heat would come from the energy released in the collision with the Earth.
Well, if it’s my family, it sounds like the perfect time for recriminations, insults, and the airing of deeply held grievances. And perhaps a political argument.
I thought that’s what Festivus was for.
It would be time for the Festivus Pole and the airing of grievances. The family would have one last chance to clear the air before the air cleared them.
Meh! Doesn’t look any worse than that time the whole family blasted all night with gastric flu.
Yes! Good call. He’s one of my very favorites.
Also, that video was fantastic. Great song.
I ain’t gonna kill my own family. There’s always a chance something will change the expected outcome. Gabriel may show up and play Dixie, the Vorlons may vaporize the asteroid, or a couple billion Chinese folks may simultaneously jump and alter the orbit just enough, etc.
I’d be inclined to share a last drink with my loved ones, and probably paraphrase Gordon Lightfoot…“Folks, it’s been good to know ya.”
For myself personally I would let nature take its course , what happens happens.
However while I never liked the book and thought it was full of shit , On the Beach by Nevil Shute had something similar , with a conversation about having to take a cyanide pill to spare yourself the death by radiation thing. The sickening thing was having to read about arguments regarding putting a baby down , as it was possible that while the adults might expire, they had a responsibility to make sure that the baby did not die of starvation while awaiting the envitable radiation.
In that case , its a decision that I would never want to make if at all possible.
Declan
I remember reading up about that on Wikipedia. Apophis was getting a bunch of media attention because the initial calculations had the impact probability at something like 1 in 30, putting it around 4 on the Torino scale, before they recrunched the numbers and lowered the probability to 1 in 45,000.
As Anne pointed out, it won’t wipe out humanity–it might cause a tsunami in the South Pacific, and it might really suck to be in the northern part of South America, but we’ll make it. Plus, I can’t remember exactly, but I do remember reading about plans to nudge it something like half a mile off-course when it passes by in 2029.
Seconded.
As the OP mentioned, I’d “hug them tight and let nature take it’s course”
And pray, because I’d be scared shitless.
Seems like a false choice between “let my loved ones die in pain” and “kill them.” I’d give my son a non-lethal dose of the sedative and let him fall asleep in my arms (able to awaken again if somehow we all survived). My husband and I would probably stay alert just in case things didn’t work out as predicted, in order to be able to react as needed.
Oh, great. The imminent destruction of humanity and family guilt.
Declan, that scene from On the Beach is just heartbreaking. Says a lot about their desperate situation that euthanizing a newborn (to save it from inevitable radiation sickness and starvation) is actually a kindness.
Q.E.D. and gonzomax, do you think there would be time for the Feats of Strength?
For myself, I just couldn’t kill my family. I’d hold them tight and we’d all slip this mortal coil together.
Article about searches for asteroids that threaten Earth, including Apophis. (The experts I talked about saying you need about a 1 km asteroid to cause global effects are probably the ones in charge of the NASA Near Earth Object Program, mentioned in this article. It’s good to confirm that I remembered this right.)
Actually, if Apophis does hit us, there might even be less loss of life than in a normal earthquake-generated tsunami (though the tsunami itself would probably be bigger). With an earthquake-generated tsunami, you have a few hours at best to evacuate coastal areas. With a hurricane storm surge, you have a few days. With an impact-generated tsunami, you have several years to prepare. You could actually evacuate coastal cities in a somewhat orderly fashion. Maybe people would be less likely to try to ride it out, since nobody on Earth has experienced an impact-generated tsunami before.
Of course, this is a best-case scenario. The local governments and local people could find some way to screw it up, of course, even with seven years’ warning. It is a large area to evacuate, and that wouldn’t be trivial, even with seven years’ warning. And, of course, there’d be lots of property damage.
It’s all Bush’s fault. 
Assuming the 1500-mph winds that Anne Neville mentions are a reasonable expectation, I wouldn’t see much point in euthanizing anyone. Just stand out in the open, and wait for the wave of wind to pick you and yours up and smack you all against something at 2200 feet per second. Should be a very quick death - you’d be lucky to have time to think “Holy shit!” between the time the wind hit you, and the time you lost consciousness for the last time as the wind smacked you into something solid.
or a person who commits suicide, either.
hypersonic <> instantaneous.
Where did the firestorm come from, and how does it cross oceans?
An asteroid is about to hit Earth. You humanely kill your kids. You & your mate are ready to bite down on your cyanide capsules…
and you see the asteroid glance off the atmosphere, causing some havoc but not global apocalyptic disaster, and then go it’s way with no further harm.
Do you bite down on the capsule anyway?
Perhaps it would come from rocks that got ejected up into Earth orbit re-entering the atmosphere. If those were thrown up with sufficient force (which I suspect we have here), they could cross oceans.