Anti- Doomsday Bombs
Interesting story from NBC News about efforts to develop nuclear weapons for stopping asteroids from smashing into the earth. They say they've identified 90% of the larger asteroids and they aren't a threat. Scary subject.
What about the other 10%? Keep in mind that one meteor accompanying that last close asteroid fly- by wasn't detected until it blew up in the sky over Russia.
Update: Oh, NO! Here's an asteroid that could hit us in 2036...maybe.
Another fun, albeit scary, story found for me by the Rational Review News Digest.
posted by Fred Mangels @ 7:20 AM
1 comments
1 Comments:
We need an orbiting platform dedicated to finding objects within the solar system. There are hundreds of thousands of objects predicted to exist in our solar system that are continent-destroyers. That's not an exaggeration. There's solid science behind the projections. We've only been spending our time finding the planet-destroyers.
And it's not easy. Most of the objects are black as coal. They're only identified when they pass in front of a lit object we can see.
If we had early detection, nuclear weapons aren't needed. You send a probe out to nudge an asteroid a few millimeters off course, and that's way more than enough to alter its course and spare Earth. Advance warning of a year or two is necessary though.
This issue is one of many looked to as an explanation for why we have yet to detect signals from civilizations elsewhere in the universe. It's quite possible they get destroyed long before they're technologically capable of protecting themselves. Or, if they have personal weaknesses similar to ourselves, they kill themselves off all on their own.
The universe is quite a hostile place for we humans.
Post a Comment
<< Home