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120,000 km Is Still Too Close
texchanchan writes: "BBC report: '...on 14 June, an asteroid (maybe as big as 120 meters in diameter)... made one of the closest-ever recorded approaches to the Earth.
..' but was only discovered three days later. This is well within the moon's orbit. 'If 2002MN had hit the Earth, it would have caused local devastation similar to that which occurred in Tunguska, Siberia, in 1908...'"
... to reach this point, when we understand our odds were so crappy. Oddly, we managed to live through a lot of these events before, and have survived a few thousands of years of recorded history without a problem.
Something tells me that the people pushing this fear either have an interest in investments in related science or in (gasp) selling newspapers or advertising space!
If we get hit by a big rock, we'll dust ourselves off. If there is an ELE, we'll have a challenge. Maybe the best thing for the human race, all things considered. At least it could give us a unified rallying point....
-- Mal: "Well they tell you: never hit a man with a closed fist. But it is, on occasion, hilarious."
Yeah, right! The author has no idea how carefully STScI checks the HST pointing to make sure you don't look anywhere near the Sun...
The only way to detect these suckers coming in from the Sun side is radar or spacecraft telescopes at the Lagrange points, not earth-orbiting scopes. Those are just a handful of objects, though: for the vast majority, I expect robotic camera surveys are quite sufficient, if someone coughs up the money.
Alas, if one of these hits the earth, then "the terrorists will already have won"(TM) - or rather, they won't need to win.
"I will take the Ring," he said, "though I do not know the way."
France's solution to unemployment is to make it so you can't work more than 35 hours a week.
...
That actually makes sense.
Fifty years ago, half the population of the U.S. was employed in agriculture. Today, it's less than 2%, and they grow more food than the country can eat. And many of them are paid not to farm. If you suddenly put nearly half the working population out of work, then add in all the women entering the work force who didn't used to be there
I think we're starting to approach the kinds of problems that have until now only been considered in speculative sci-fi. When we only need about 10% of the population to work to provide for everyone, what will the other 90% do for a living? And how do we pick which 10% it's going to be?
Nope, no sig