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Earth almost put on impact alert
- Thread starter iGav
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I wonder how many hundreds of potentially devastating stellar objects pass much closer to Earth all the time without even being spotted at all?
This has been in the news - dooms day from space - for quite a while. And its just since we've been going to space in the past couple of decades that we actually realized that this cosmic pool game was so iffy. Hopefully we'll have the technology to alter the trajectory of one of these comets or asteroids before we find one that needs to be moved 
D
D
Originally posted by Gymnut
Well we could always call on Bruce Willis to lead a team of drillers to land atop one of these doomsday space rocks and blow it up by strategically placing atomic warheads.
And for strategic reasons, it would always have to go 800 feet down, even if they land on the wrong spot of the irregularly-shaped, minerally non-uniform rock...
This is not the first story I've read like this. There seems to be a new "near miss" article every 2 or 3 months. And they always say that they almost didn't notice the asteroid until it would have been too late to do anything about it.
The funny thing is that the world got by fine for millions of years without having to worry that the sky is falling. (Don't ask the dinosaurs, though.)
The funny thing is that the world got by fine for millions of years without having to worry that the sky is falling. (Don't ask the dinosaurs, though.
)
we really need to have a program in place to detect and divert these rocks, its not a matter of IF its a matter of WHEN.
Just a little history for you skeptics, the time is 7.17am the year is 1908 location thank god was Siberia 40 miles from the explosion a farmer was sitting on his porch and when this thing exploded it knocked him off his feet and he stated my shirt was almost burned onto my body, it also leveled a forest for over 5 miles. A lot more damage was done but the good thing was that this item exploded before it hit the ground. Probably a very small comet.
These are real things and we arent doing anything about it. Instead we have grand dreams of chasing the moon again and mars. Nasa needs to wake up and so do all the politicians.
Just a little history for you skeptics, the time is 7.17am the year is 1908 location thank god was Siberia 40 miles from the explosion a farmer was sitting on his porch and when this thing exploded it knocked him off his feet and he stated my shirt was almost burned onto my body, it also leveled a forest for over 5 miles. A lot more damage was done but the good thing was that this item exploded before it hit the ground. Probably a very small comet.
These are real things and we arent doing anything about it. Instead we have grand dreams of chasing the moon again and mars. Nasa needs to wake up and so do all the politicians.
Good that it missed, and the'll be plenty more near misses over the next few thousand, or hundred thousand, years. But it is something we ought to pay attention to; even if you figure there's only a .001% chance in any given decade that something big will hit us, it is an eventual certainty. And when it does, it will almost certainly wipe out civilization as we know it, if not all life on earth--it's darn near happened several times before.
There are, of course, more pressing issues that could well wipe out civilization, but it's worth putting a bit of effort into keeping an eye on the sky. That, and if things get working well enough, we could also catch Tungusta blast-scale objects that might wipe out a city, and do something about them, too.
There are, of course, more pressing issues that could well wipe out civilization, but it's worth putting a bit of effort into keeping an eye on the sky. That, and if things get working well enough, we could also catch Tungusta blast-scale objects that might wipe out a city, and do something about them, too.
There are already groups tracking asteroids:
NEAT
Minor Bodies Observatory
and I get the impression that there is a lot of research into how to defend ourselves from such things
Planetary Defense Conference
NEAT
Minor Bodies Observatory
and I get the impression that there is a lot of research into how to defend ourselves from such things
Planetary Defense Conference
I thought everyone knew that the Tunguska event was caused by a Tesla death ray, it had nothing to do with comets.
Actually, about the only thing we can do to prevent a large heavenly body from destroying the human race is to spread to other planets as fast as humanly possible. I don't think we currently have the technology to "divert" a small moon from it's orbit... nuclear weapons aren't going to cut it.
what iam saying is we do have the technology to divert smaller ones perhaps saving a city or state, sure we have a very few scopes looking but we have no plan or ability to do much more then say here it comes. What we need is a few hubble class telescopes who's only task is to look for and detect these objects and then a way to divert the ones that we can. as of now there is nothing we can do. what if this asteroid was coming our way? low orbit shuttle is worthless and not one nation on this planet has a rocket that could do anything. so here we are hoping this doesnt occur in our life time. we have 2 threats facing us, ourselves and big rocks coming our way. we can at least do something about the big rocks.
Ahhh, not to be too cynical or anything here, but what good is fixing the one if we don't fix the other?
Fear. Fear. Fear. That's what it is all about these days. Fear and death sell newspapers and increase teevee ratings more than basic "news" stories. Whenever the media pumps the fear, I always look a little to the left or right of their sensational spiel and try to gauge what is really going down at the time. After all, the media doesn't report the news, only the news it wants you to see/hear.
that was on the birthday, would've made a nice present if it landed on Bush whilst he was making his Mars speech hehe
ignore,show a little ignorance and ignore a little more, why dont we just bury our heads in the sand and lets all pretend these objects dont exist. Inspector Lee is brilliant! that will solve the problem! take a look at the moon and tell me what all those scars are? also lets play pretend a little more ! why dont we just ignore the fact that a comet had just hit jupiter and the size of the explosion was the size of the Earth. then lets ignore this article and lets ignore the siberian explosion. brilliant politics with lots of spin.
I dont know but with mankind constantly killing each other since the dawn of time i think it would be easier to divert big rocks millions of miles away in space then it would be to change man here on this planet. maybe if we can prevent the next event it will give us time to evolve into a more peaceful humanity.Originally posted by mactastic
Ahhh, not to be too cynical or anything here, but what good is fixing the one if we don't fix the other?
I'd definetly agree diverting big rocks is much easier of a prospect than world peace! Sad but true.
Wow...
I read this before but still wow.
Its not 30m... its 500m
What WOULD happen if that were to hit us?
They said 30m is above 9/11... so a 500m would be... a big lot worse no?
I read this before but still wow.
Its not 30m... its 500m
What WOULD happen if that were to hit us?
They said 30m is above 9/11... so a 500m would be... a big lot worse no?
Genius. Let's spend all our time and effort protecting ourselves from rocks that hit land once every 10 million years rather than protect ourselves against wars that break out every year and pollution that gets worse every day. By the time we do get clobbered by an extraterrestrial rock we'll already be extinct. Pure genius!
You must pay closer attention my dear Watson, I didnt say spend all of our time and effort but lets spend some of our time and resources in doing something instead of taking the ostrich approach, as of today the only thing we could do is DUCK! how about a dedicated constant search for these ever moving objects and how about at least a rocket that can make it to space deep space. Ignoring this real threat isnt going to make it go away.Originally posted by Awimoway
Genius. Let's spend all our time and effort protecting ourselves from rocks that hit land once every 10 million years rather than protect ourselves against wars that break out every year and pollution that gets worse every day. By the time we do get clobbered by an extraterrestrial rock we'll already be extinct. Pure genius!
and for your info we get hit a lot more then every 10 million years, its only the very biggest one that hits on the avg of 26 million years meaning a total extinction event( read the fossil record) we are talking about the smaller ones which might only take out a city state or continent.
(edit) one more point when they spotted this thing in the article it was only 36 hrs away, not enough time to do anything and we dont have any technology in place to do anything. we need to be able to spot these things a lot further away then that and we just arent looking for them.
If it's only a city or a state that we're worried about, well those can mostly be evacuated in 36 hours.