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Asteroid Whizzing By Earth 6 Times Closer Than the Moon (cnet.com)
An anonymous reader shares a CNET report: The problem with asteroids passing near Earth is that they're often difficult to spot. Fortunately the hardest ones to see in our neighborhood also tend to be the smaller ones. Such is the case with 2017 BH30, which was discovered Sunday by the Catalina Sky Survey just hours before passing by us at the creepy-close distance of only 40,563 miles (65,280 kilometres). This asteroid is estimated to be between 15-32.8 feet (4.6-10 metres) in length, making it somewhere between the size of a truck and a... big truck. That's pretty small by asteroid standards, but it's also the closest spotted asteroid to pass us since September when asteroid 2016 RB1 passed within 24,000 miles (about 39,000 kilometres) of our planet's surface, putting it almost as close as satellites in geosynchronous orbit. This is the third asteroid to buzz by earth closer than the distance to the moon this year. We don't expect a closer pass by one of these visitors until October, when asteroid 2012 TC4 could come more than twice as close.
Except it's not just about one-time interactions. These bullets come back. A close miss today might alert us to an impending hit later on, and give us time to prepare. It's not always just about "incoming now."
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
It is pointless to spend a lot of money on this technology,
Except that "a lot of money" is not required. The equipment used already exists, and even most of the data is already available. It just needs to be analysed to look for the NEOs.
Sounds great in theory but in practice it's not going to do you any good.
Except there is plenty we can do. Even with a few hours warning, we can tell people to get away from windows and remove stuff from shelves. Flying glass was the biggest source of injuries from the Chelyabinsk impact.
Other short term precautions:
1. Stop trains, so they don't come off the track.
2. Stop additional cars from entering tunnels.
3. Pretension seismic dampers in tall structures
4. Sound an alarm to warn people in warehouses and stores to move away from shelves.
5. Pull up automatic safely webbing to prevent pallets from falling off racks.
6. Stop and lower cargo on forklifts.
7. Start powering down heavy machinery
8. Stop people from entering elevators
9. Open fire station doors, so they don't jam closed.
10. Shutdown the flames in furnaces and water heaters
11. Start reducing gas pressure in pipelines.
12. Warn people on beaches to start moving to higher ground.
13. Start backup diesels for emergency services.
14. Retract the control rods from nuclear reactors.