Slashdot Mirror
UK Govt Plans To Set Up 'Armageddon' Centre
Scott Manley writes "According to the Sunday Times, and the BBC the UK government is putting together a task force to advise the government on Extraterrestrial hazards. Professor Mark Bailey has been campaigning for this for a long time - and it seems timely for such a thing after his staff at Armagh Observatory made the first accurate prediction of a meteor shower.
"
That's just like the British Governemt.... If they don't understand it, they'll hide from it. Sopunds a bit like the internet to me...
Their primary concern is whether it will hit on UK territory? I may be wrong, but as far as I know a meteor hitting earth can either be too small to detect in advance (at least without enough warning time to do anything), or - if its bigger - it doesnt matter too much whether it actually drops on the UK or somewhere else.
:-)
Anyway, it sounds like a nice job to apply for... You can blurt out all bullshit you want, and if you actually go wrong there wont be anyone left to blame you.
Looks like they're jealous of all the silly ways :) I wonder if they'll call it UNIT..
the US Govt wastes money, and are trying to play
catch up
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
Finally, governments that might actually, maybe, get it :). It strikes me that this is something that the United Nations should fund, as the implications and benefits of any work into researching Near Earth Objects. JPL is associated with some work into this: Check out the Near Earth Asteroid Tracking program (NEAT).
Some people think of this as a waste of money, but we are the first species to get to the point where we can prevent our own (eventual) cosmic reset button from being set.
One way to look at it is a great big life insurance program for Human Civilization - the payments aren't high, the work can be largely automated, and if the program ever pays off, there is no way to measure the value of the endeavor! :)
Too bad the US wouldn't shovel some more bucks into NEAT, but, we'll see what international competition can do.
Kudos..
..don't panic
A waste of money?! I hope you'll take that back when they inform you you have aproximately 2 years before a large rock flattens your house.
I guess that's one "new labour" way to spend the ever increasing fuel tax they're squeezing out of us!
Personally, I'd rather they spend the money to bring back Dr. Who...
Karma makes sense. It makes a lot more sense if you add reincarnation.
Mark my word, they're only doing this so they could get rid of Bruce Willis. (And I don't blame them).
With our present technology there's little we could do to deflect a projectile of sizable momentum. After all, how much money did the US spend on Star Wars? And with so little to show for it in the end.
We ought to spend the money on manned space exploration of the solar system. That way we get access to the asteroid belt's natural resources, which we need in order to construct the massive equipment we'd need to both monitor and protect against incursions from that same asteroid belt.
Besides, it would be a blast.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
This sounds like a typical knee-jerk reaction so the elected officials can say they are doing something. And, realistically, the effort isn't going to do a whole lot. If a big rock hits anywhere, the whole planet is screwed. There have been 5 mass extictions, why can't there be a 6th?
We see some meteors, hey lets form a body to find some that might hit us. (Ok so you are tracking them, now what you going to do?!?!? Go up there and ask it to swerve and hit the IRA?)
Here in the USA, someone shoots up a postoffice and so now it's illegal to have a gun in a postoffice. Nevermind that its illegal to shoot people, to hide a gun, to discharge a firearm in city limits, etc *WE* (the elected officials) have done something.
I guess we get the governments we deserve eh?
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
The sunday times URL is "www.sunday-times.co.uk"
Who is Seg Fault, and what is he doing with Kernel Space?
Let's hook up a Beowulf cluster of Professor Mark Baileys!
If you can deflect an massive object even by a very small amount (say, a half-decent nuke set off on the surface of one side) wouldn't that be enough to change its path so that it doesn't hit the earth? If you deflect it early enough, it only has to move by a few earth radii (very small in astronomical terms) in order to miss the earth.
Real Audio link to the whole (3 hour) program. The interview occurs at elapsed time 2:19:00, about 80% through the program. (I can't stand McGregor so can't bear to listen through it again ...)
It was rather embarrassing, as I recall; he was interviewed by (IMHO) the most irritatingly fluff-headed presenter on the show, Sue McGregor, who asked stupid questions, didn't listen to the answers, then asked further stupid questions which had already been dealt with ("How do you tell meteors and comets and so on to buzz off ?") The morning I hear her interviewing an Open Source personality is the morning my head explodes. (No change there, then.)
The gist of what he was saying was that the reports are way ahead of themselves; he has asked Mark Bailey et al for a list of recommended experts in the field, with the intention of investigating the actual threat and then recommending appropriate action, if any. The establishment of a permanent study group is one possibility that may come out of this process.
--
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
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Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
This has been known for quite some time, a secret rougue government agency, the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce or UNIT has been secretly protecting the earth since the 1970s.
UNIT has been responsible for the successful prevention of countless alien invasions, and without their shadowly activities, the earth would be doomed.
speaking of extraterrestrial objects, i'm living in Canada and was travelling across the 407 ETR near Goreway Dr in Brampton at about 8:45-9:30pm - when I noticed a green and red light dart across the sky. This was on Sunday night, November 28. I thought it was something local in the area, like a movie theatre, but wasn't aware of any flashing lights into the sky, cuz sometimes that happens. It was a real strange colour that I'd never seen flashed into the sky...
This doesn't sound like they are quite going that far--this is just some committee to advise on when we do find one, but it's certainly a step in the right direction.
Some people might see this as a waste of money, but I disagree:
Keeping our heads in the sand claiming "it costs too much!" isn't very smart when a single strike can wipe us out with all our precious money in the process.
ufdraco
You know, this would be a *great* time for some math calculations. I'll pull some numbers and formulas out of my ass, and hopefully someone who actually knows what they are talking about can prove/disprove the idea that this is useful. I am just doing this to fuel discussion, and not because I actually know what I am talking about.
/i
So, Given:
Earth is considered stationary relative to the asteroid.
An cosmic object of mass 'm' and velocity 'v',
assuming 'v' is constant, that gravitation acceleration by the earth and sun are neglible.
We can actually find this point, where earth's gravity becomes non-neglible.
First, Fg (force of gravity) equals:
Fg = Kg * me * m / d^2
where:
Kg = the gravitation constant (too lazy to look it up)
me = the mass of the earth (in kg)
d = the distance between the centers of gravity (not the surfaces), in metres.
Now assume that this is a two dimesional collison between the asteriod, and the earth (since the path of the asteroid can be considered a straight line, and a straight line can be defined by two points, and the point of earth is a third, and all that is needed to define 2 dimensions is three points)
Now, we have to find 'd', such that the asteroid won't hit the earth.
e
d /
/
*----X---------------- -Path of asteriod
earth's
x-intercept
Now, Fg = Kc*m*me/d^2, find the minimum distance "d" such that the path of the asteroid is changed enough to hit the earth (that is, to move the asteroid d*sin(i)) in the positive y-direction in the time it 'Ti' takes for the asteroid to travel d*cos(i).
Ti = d*cos(i)/v
So:
Fg = ma = m*me*Kc/d^2
where:
a = acceleration of the asteroid by gravity
Therefore:
a = me*Kc/d^2
a = vf - vo / Ti
where :
vf = final velocity as it hits earth or crosses earth's x-intercept
v0 = the original velocity of the asteroid
Ti = change of time from the original position, to earth's x-intercept
Now v0 = 0, because the asteroid is not traveling in the y-direction to start with.
a = vf/Ti
vf/Ti = Kc*me/d^2
vf = distance/time
where:
distance = d*sin(i)
time = Ti
d*sin(i)/Ti^2 = Kc*me/d^2
sin(i)/Ti^2 = Kc*me/d^3
Rearranging all of that to whatever you want, what we have is we need an asteroid with a certain time to impact, distance, and angle of incidence from earth to hit it. You will notice that mass of the asteroid is irrelevant at this point.
Now, if 'd', 'i', or 'Ti' is small/large enough to deflect the asteroid toward earth, we are in trouble.
Again, this assumes earth is stationary in respect to the asteroid. That is, that velocity of the earth is much, much smaller that the velocity of the asteroid.
Now we have to figure out energy in needed to push the asteroid out of a collision path. If this message generates enough karma, I will post a hot sequel entitled "Some *more* math calcuations". If not, then the calculation is left as a exercise for the reader.
"Don't mind me cutting myself on Occam's Razor"
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Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
Some time ago I made some reasearch at Pulkovo Observatory in St. Petersburg, Russia (at its library, mostly :-), and if my memory does not cheat me there was a similar organization which even had a hotline to NEAT people. Their HQ is on Kutuzovskaya embarkment 12, at the Institute of Theoretical Astronomy building. They are issuing an annual book (and CD) called "Ephemerides of Minor Planets", or EMP for short. If you want to support them, order it (about $30 as far as I know). Someone could find out their internet addesses... It was 6 years ago I met them.
The whole point of the Center is to decide what to do. Sounds good to me.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
yeah baby
gr33tz to d3v0
http://gammatron.weblogger.com