NASA’s response? “‘We were extremely lucky to be seeing Jupiter at exactly the right time, the right hour, the right side of Jupiter to witness the event. We couldn’t have planned it better,’ said Glenn Orton, a scientist at JPL.” http://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/jup-20090720.html
He seems to be glossing over the bothersome possibility of Jupiter not always graciously being in the right place at the right time to act as a barrier preventing us from being pulverized into sub-sub-sub atomic particles. Think of the movies involving this scenario and our planet; the Bad Rock in question is always comparative to the size of Toledo, or Texas, and it’s a world killer. This latest one was as big as us! Hootman! :eek:
It turns out Michael Bay may be closer to the mark than even his own mother would have given him credit for (Armageddon was his, yes?) . It turns out there are some 6252 near-Earth asteroids worth tugging our collars over. http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/stats/
Who else is incredibly disheartened that NASA, our erstwhile Professional Galactic Defender Consortium is more concerned at missing the potential photo op over missing the potential opportunity to put a workable system in place to guard against an apocalyptic calamity that has 6252 arrows in its quiver? I know we’re in a recession, but :smack: C’MON!
The impact crater was Earth-sized, not the Asteroid itself - or else it would have been a planet
As for cherising the photo-OP, why not? It’s not as if the asteroid hadn’t hit Jupiter it would have nailed us. It would probably have kept circling until eventually Jupiter would have pulled it in. Thats what we have Jupiter and Saturn for, collecting all these rocks…
Humans have been on this planet for a very long time with no means of even detecting, much less avoiding, potentially dangerous asteroids. Yes, if one gets through, we’re in a world of hurt…but that kinda thing only happens once every several million years. Odds are we’re pretty safe. As a budget priority, this has to rank relatively low.
I understand it hasn’t happened yet, and the odds of it ever happening are in our favor, but judging from the chart I linked to, the odds are getting worse for us, not better. If one gets through, we wouldn’t be in a world of hurt; we’d be a world of ashes. I just think something should be in place is all. A measured, realistic, prudent, and fiscally responsible defense, like a giant robot baseball player who could bash incoming asteroids away like hanging curve balls.
Seriously though, if all it takes is one, and there’s an ever-escalating number of cataclysmically threatening space debris whirling our way, I believe something should officially be in place besides a regretful roll of the shoulders and a feeble admission of “we really, really, really, never thought this could happen, but it did. DUCK!”
I was thinking about the size of the rock vs. the size of the impact, and my conclusion is this; the size of the malevolent object streaking through space with us directly in front of it doesn’t really matter very much at all. It’s the size of the smoking hole left in the ground after the shrieking dust storms subside long enough for the sun to weakly illuminate the panoramic span of the devastation left over after the devastating collision (and this is assuming there’d be ground left over for a hole to gape in anyway, which is admittedly optimistic).
Your wording, “or else it would have been a planet,” intrigued me as well. I did some digging on Jupiter here, and discovered “planet-sized” is a very relative qualifier.
Some highlights: “If Jupiter were hollow, more than one thousand Earths could fit inside. It also contains more matter than all of the other planets [in our solar system, presumably] combined.” “[It has] a mass of 1.9 x 1027 kg and is 142,800 kilometers (88,736 miles) across the equator.” “The atmosphere is very deep, perhaps comprising the whole planet, and is somewhat like the Sun.”
Given the holistic hostility and sheer immensity found in the composition of the planet, I’m inclined to believe this isn’t the first time it’s been clobbered by something Earth-esque (at least in terms of impact, if not initial size and composition pre-collision). If you’re as big as a thousand Earths, I guess taking a knock on the chin from the equivalent of one isn’t so bad.
Is this all that uncommon? I don’t think the Earth would still be here if it weren’t for the massive gassy sphere that is Jupiter. Jupiter acts like a vacuum, sucking in all the asteroids that get pulled from the nethers by our sun before it can get to us. It’s like a big, yellowish blueish brownish pinkish bodyguard out there, keeping the riff-raff from ending life as we know it.
So I would expect that Jupiter takes some pretty big whackings semi-frequently.
Sorry all, I was trying to link info regarding lack of funding for the NEOP (Near Earth Objects Program). Seems NASA has located only 30% of said objects having exhausted 80% of funds.
I dunno. Being that we really don’t have much chance at avoiding a collision, I’m not sure I necessarily want to know it’s coming. A cosmic sucker punch, with a quick, clean death beats months of craziness getting ready for the inevitable. The idea of the fundie crowd facing reasonably certain, but non-biblical doom doesn’t sound pleasant.
That’s a GREAT book. As much as I like the bad “we’re all going to die in [single digit] months” movies, unfortunately we’ll be here well past when my social security runs out.
So, the consensus I’m getting here–in addition to what I’ve quoted, but nicely distilled in the above statement just the same (thanks)–is that there is no system to put in place?
We’re gonna spend 40 quadrillion dollars to put a McDonalds on the moon, but my gigantic robot asteroid defender is a no-go? The sad thing is, I was obviously joking, while all the space/politic big-wigs are just waiting, rubbing their hands together. They say they’re re-thinking it, but I just can’t see such a vacuous, wasteful opportunity pass this many salivating suit-and-ties by. The moon-base thing will happen, apparently so some chosen group of elites can sit in a cramped and uncomfortable space with a front row seat for Earth’s eventual decimation at the blind behest of a chunk of solid, dead cosmic ephemera. WTF? Seriously? No system…really?
This makes sense, and is twice as frustrating as the first quote. Why is NASA even still around? I mean, besides the future Moon money pit and the oncoming soon-to-fail-or-be-scratched expedition to Mars, why/how are they justifying a multi-billion dollar payroll?
I was so upset when I first typed the preceding reply, I didn’t even notice this; in the second article I linked to, there are plans to launch a manned mission to a near-Earth asteroid. “[T]he agency’s acting administrator, Chris Scolese…hinted that the agency is open to putting more emphasis on human missions to destinations like…a near-Earth asteroid.” HA! So they can locate, fly to, and land on one, but they can’t stop it from smashing us? Or maybe figuring out how to do so would be the focus of the mission? How? With a stern reprimand? Or perhaps with a hard-nosed but good-hearted oil-drilling crew? Good Lord: Michael Bay was right!
No there’s not. We’re just finding more of the ones which have always been there.
In fact, seeing as Jupiter just sucked up one more bit of enormous space debris, our chances of getting whacked have just gone down by … hmmm, about 0.01%.
From the book, referenced above: “Plait, an astronomer and author of the popular Web site badastronomy.com, presents in loving detail the many, many ways the human race could die, from temperature extremes and poisonous atmosphere to asteroid impacts and supernovae explosions.”
Just the summary blurb of Death from the Skies makes The Road look like this.
You know, sometimes, Earth (along with the surrounding void) is bluntly revealed as a harrowingly horrific place to live.
Thank God I started this thread. It’s so uplifting.
