Wednesday, 01.30.08
The asteroid threat
Sometime in 2027, you'll remember reading this post. Maybe sooner.
Asteroid 2007 TU24 passed by the Earth harmlessly yesterday, a mere
334,000 miles from where you're sitting right now. That's slightly
farther away than the Moon, but closer than any known asteroid will
come until 2027. Had it hit, the 500-meter-across mass of iron could
have caused a catastrophe -- probably not a Deep Impact-style planetary extinction, but something big.
Most worrisome: astronomers discovered the asteroid just a few months ago. Meanwhile, instead of funding sky-scanning programs, NASA is planning another two years of outrageously expensive Shuttle flights -- followed by an even more extravagant plan to beat the Chinese back to the Moon. We could divert an asteroid, if we spot it in time. We might not.
These garbled priorities would be funny, if they did not have the potential to kill you and everyone you know.
Rethinking NASAGregg Easterbrook looked at NASA and saw a bureaucracy built to keep contractors in business, not to further knowledge and keep us safe. |
Don't start looting yetPhil Plait, astronomy gotcha!-blogger, deflated rumors of an asteroid strike (and pre-apocalyptic breakdown of social order). |
Bring on the EndAtlantic contributor Jonathan Rauch called for an end to humanity -- but a gentle end. |
Rocket science as judoA British team urges us to keep our nukes holstered, and instead to attack asteroids by catching them early, then applying gravity to steer them away. |
