Slashdot Mirror
Stop Worrying About Asteroids
alnapp writes: "It appears that international efforts to track asteroids are missing the main worry, according to Bill Napier of the Armagh Observatory speaking to New Scientist. Comets, it would seem are more likely to cause us grief. I know that as kids we were told that space dust was bad for you (is that a too "UK" centric reference) but this seems like just another panic waiting to happen."
If everyone stopped buying Britney Spears CDs and put their money into research instead the scientists wouldn't have to beg at the steps of government...
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Notice how astronomers allways say that we need to spend money investigating the sky because there is a 1 in 10000000000000000000000000 chance that it could fall and kill us all in the next 100000000 years. Biologist always say that we need to spend money investigating viruses because there is a 1 in 10000000000000000000000000 chance that an formerly unknown one could pop up and kill us all in the next 100000000 years. Geologist always say that we need to spend money investigating earthquakes because there is a 1 in 10000000000000000000000000 chance that one could hit a population center and kill us all in the next 100000000 years.
Meanwhile, life goes on.
Geesh, guys. Get a new tune. Isn't there any other way to campaign for an increased budget? And you wonder why people get desensitized and just ignore you after a while. Most people realize that the chances of humanity being able to stop any of these scenarios is about 1 in 10000000000000000000000000.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Anyone remember the outgassing, the cometary debris??? The bad guy in "Armageddon" was a hodgepodge of bad theory, moving very rapidly towards a bunch of testosterone-charged morons who lucked out in that their script writers did not have a grasp of basic physics, but I digress. See http://www.badastronomy.com for more about bad science in the media.
As for its composition, physics says it doesn't matter what the object is made out of, it could be an asteroid the size of Manhattan, a gigaton mass of Ben and Jerry's Cherry Garcia, or a mile wide dust bunny, if you throw it at the Earth at 70 thousand kph it's going to make a BOOM and significantly impact the surface, not "evaporate" in the atmosphere.
The speed of the object coupled with its size is such that it would traverse the distance from space to surface (our onion skin of an atmosphere) in a matter of seconds, it would not have time to "evaporate" or even break up. More than 95% of the object's energy will remain when it slams into water, or land.
I think it is correct to state that comets probably pose a greater threat than near Earth objects simply because we have been interacting with NEO's for four point five billion years. Earth has had more than enough time to make peace with its orbital partners.
On the other hand comets like Hale-Bopp and other objects with long orbital periods get tossed at us from the Oort cloud and leave us only a few months warning. It certainly makes sense to have a sensible policy for dealing with this when, not if it happens. This may not make anyone sleep easier, but something out there IS on a collision course with us, we just may be a few dozen, a few hundred, or a few thousand years away from noticing it.
Personally, I think the longer the warning, the better. :)
Get off my virtual lawn, you damned virtual kids!
This post for me wondering... what scenario of the following is more likely to happen:
- A giant comet / asteroid / mini-black hole / whatever crashing into the Earth
- A new disease caused by new virii / prions that's almost 100% transmissible and always deathly
- The sudden flipping of the magnetic poles (north becomes south and viceversa
- Microsoft Corporation admitting that, indeed, Bill Gates IS the Antichrist
- CowboyNeal
Hmmm... Slashdot poll material, maybe?
Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earth-bound misfit, I
Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earth-bound misfit, I
Learning to fly, Pink Floyd.
The article clearly states that the danger from comets is about the same as the the danger from NEOs. For those too lazy to follow the link, or if it gets /.ed, the danger is that a comet could evaporate, leaving lots of dust in Earth's orbit, which would be picked up as we move through it, blocking out the sun and causing an ice age.
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