The Earth is continually under threat of impact from asteroids, meteors, comets, and other space junk. Based on current theories, it has been 65 millions years since the last mass extinction event due to a meteor: it ended the hundred million plus year reign of the dinosaurs. The odds of an impact this massive happening within the next one or two hundred years is microscopic. However, smaller bodies can still be quite devastating if they strike the Earth with sufficient speed.
In 1908, a meteorite struck Tanguska, in Siberia. Fortunately, the area was not populated by humans, and no people were killed. However, a body of approximately 100 meters (not big in terms of the solar system), exploding quite a few kilometers up in the air (~5-10 estimated) completely devastated an area of approximately 2000 square kilometers with an explosion comparable in yield to 1000 "Hiroshima" atomic bombs. Granted, this level of impact doesn't happen very often... but ~100 years ago is a very short time by solar system standards.
How many people would have died if the meteorite had arrived on the same trajectory a couple of hours later? Millions of Moscow residents would have died.
Moscow was here
Fast forward a hundred years to the event of approximately one month ago: thousands of people in Chelyabinsk were injured by the shock wave (due to broken glass) from a very similar event to the Tanguska impact, except much smaller in scale. Russia has had enough.
According to Neil DeGrasse Tyson, famous physics and physics publicist, no country's government is doing anything about the threat of impacts. He said this before today's announcement from Russia that they are planning to ramp up their detection efforts and begin work on systems to physically intercept Earth-bound objects. The article mentions that Russia admits it will not be able to handle such a project by themselves, although much of their planning has already been completed since they started work about a month ago (guess why). Part of the plan involves placing an observatory in stationary orbit between the Earth and the Moon at an appropriate Lagrangian point (quite interesting if you read up on this).
Russia wants to put some eyes at L1
I have been interested in this issue for a while. What can we do about the threat of impacts. What should we do. Exactly how big is the threat of impacts? I'm reading some books on the topic right now, and was going to delay creating a thread a few weeks to discuss this, but Russia has forced my hand.
I firmly believe that my country (USA) should either get on board with Russia's project or begin new talks about increasing the USA's dedication to finding ways to prevent devastating impacts.
In the past 10-20 years we have actually made some progress in detection: we can track the largest meteors, asteroids, and comets much better than we could before. Really small bodies (pebbles) do not pose much of a threat. I see two other classes of threats: somewhat larger than pebble, and somewhat smaller than Tanguska. Objects that are the size of cars can be quite devastating, but are virtually impossible for us to detect with technology that will be available for many years to come. We should focus on tracking the objects that are slightly smaller than what we are currently able to track; not only are they more dangerous, but it's just not impossible with current technology to begin work on tracking these fairly large objects, compared to Land Rover sized rocks.
The other piece of this is of course responding to a body that is on an impact trajectory. Unfortunately, Bruce Willis won't be able to help when it's a real asteroid coming. For years people have been hypothesizing ways to shield the Earth from impacts: deflection, annihilation, etc. Maybe we can finally put some of the Earth's nuclear arsenal to good use.
Not this time, Bruce
In the short term, impacts are probably not the greatest threat to humanity. They are up there, however, despite what the world's apathy would lead you to believe. I encourage you to do some research on the issue as I am currently doing.
Long term, impact is probably one of the top three reasons why humans will cease to be (I might be giving us too much credit... who knows).
What is your country doing about this? What should they be doing? How can we help? If you don't think we should address this, why?
I think this is definitely something that should be looked into more deeply since asteroids can cause terrible, terrible damage to civilization. Imagine if an asteroid the size of New York hit the earth. Everyone would be fucked.
I think its pretty bad that even though there's such an infinitesimal chance of a large-scale impact happening anytime soon, we have done next to nothing as a planet to shield ourselves from the potential apocalypse. We know they've hit us before and we were lucky. Is that really what humans have evolved into? Beings that still look directly at a huge potential threat to their survival as a civilization and go "eh we'll just roll the dice and pray" won't live for too long.
This isn't one of the natural disasters on earth where you can mess up and no problem, a small area is destroyed but you pick up the pieces and rebuild. If a big-scale impact happened, gg Earth. There is no second chance.
What we should do (we as in EU+US+other developed coutries) is to solve the problem of detection once and for all. If we could predict Tunguska events 2 month in advance it would decrease their impact (no pun intended) significantly.
This is completely feasible, even with our current technology and current economic/fiscal climate. A few years ago Congress comissioned a study on the asteroid threat. The result was that the biggest total threat was from objects 100-300m in size. Asteroids that spend most of their time inside the orbit of Earth were deemed especially dangerous, since they are harder to detect.
NASA's proposed solution was a 1.5m infrared telescope on orbit around Venus, which was supposed to find ~80% of these objects by 2025. The proposed price tag was 3billion. (Give or take 50%, I don't remember the exact numbers. I promise I'll dig up the orginal study soon.)
So basically by far the biggest threat are asteroids that would cause vast regional devastation but would have little impact for the Earth as a whole. Furthermore detecting asteroids is very easy compared to changing their trajectory. The sensible solution seems to be to invest heavily into detection and think about defense when we actually find an asteroid that's headed towards us.
No, actually humanity has evolved into the opposite... Let's take zero risk and start investing infinite money into very small probability disasters... We are scared of global warming, nuclear, coal, cars, chemicals, food, electromagnetism... Each of those thing have their loonies wanting to put half of humanities production into stopping the danger of... We live, we improve, we must follow the mighty laws of economics, sure when we know the asteroid is coming, the price of anti-asteroid solution might be slightly skyrocketing.
Actually today I was wondering about this, if you know an asteroid will destroy a city of the size of lets say, Mexico city. Which will cause more suffering and damage in the long run, letting every get hit by surprise or evacuate 10's of millions of people. Of course we should try to save as many but the result might not be kill more in the long run? What do you think
Evolution is a race to develop technology to protect against asteroids. Life is limited in space because intelligent civilizations get hit by asteroids.
For every human that cares about a troubling issue in today's world, there is a person who doesn't give a shit, another person who doesn't know that shit exists, and another one who points to something else. I'm pretty sure an asteroid detection/shield system is at the bottom of all the global issues we're facing today.
While I believe having the ability to prevent such disasters is a good idea, I don't know if I agree with the fact that we need to plan/have something ready for every minuscule eventuality. Seems like just pissing resources away on a roll of a massive die that has to land on the same side 100x in a row for something devastating to happen.
As long as we go for "ignore the likelihood of it not happening and let's focus on how scary the threat is"
The freaking sun will one day kill us all, yes the same thing that is keeping us alive will become so hot that it will incinerate us. The meteor threat is nothing but a fart compared to this, wanna worry about something? Then worry about the freaking sun literally turning Earth to a piece of coal before it implodes.
On March 14 2013 08:38 Integra wrote: As long as we go for "ignore the likelihood of it not happening and let's focus on how scary the threat is"
The freaking sun will one day kill us all, yes the same thing that is keeping us alive will become so hot that it will incinerate us. The meteor threat is nothing but a fart compared to this, wanna worry about something? Then worry about the freaking sun literally turning Earth to a piece of coal before it implodes.
The key difference between these two threats is that one can strike at any time; the other is most likely far into the future. The good news is there is some overlap in preparation for both eventualities... improving our ability to defend from asteroids most likely also improves our ability to improve our overall space technology.
On March 14 2013 08:36 Mortal wrote: While I believe having the ability to prevent such disasters is a good idea, I don't know if I agree with the fact that we need to plan/have something ready for every minuscule eventuality. Seems like just pissing resources away on a roll of a massive die that has to land on the same side 100x in a row for something devastating to happen.
Work is being done to try to balance risk of different types of impacts to see which ones are most worth focusing on (as has already been mentioned by another poster). It's been 100 years since the last impact that could have killed millions, and 1 month since the last impact that injured thousands. This is a real threat.
The perspective here is astounding to me. I honestly believe that comets are the last of our worries, doing anything at this point is a waste of money.
If we find a rock big enough to destroy humanity, it'll be too late to stop it, plus, last time it has happened was a long time back, the odds are fine, if we worried about every single little threat nothing would be done.
I imagine doing this is very expensive, with all the needed infrastructure and need to hire smart people, to save what, maybe 100 out of 7 billion people in their lifetime?
Global issues, flaws of capitalism, poverty, rich getting richer, cancer, global warming, HIV, pollution, cultural differences are going to have a much larger impact to people, and those are the issues that need to be solved or improve first before we tackle something as insignificant as this.
I know you teach Micronesia, and you're a smart person, but this asteroid defence shield crap is one of the silliest things I've read on teamliquid for a while.
On March 14 2013 08:06 Ettick wrote: I think this is definitely something that should be looked into more deeply since asteroids can cause terrible, terrible damage to civilization. Imagine if an asteroid the size of New York hit the earth. Everyone would be fucked.
Well yeah, but if that is in the stars to happen, as they say, then we can't do anything about it anyway. GL having any effect on anything that big.
While I don't think there is necessarily a right or wrong decission to be made, I think we should accept there are some things we can't do anything about. I'm not as well educated on the topic as you, but I think resources would be better spent elsewhere, even just making a global pool fund to help in the aftermath of meteor (if someone corrects me that I'm using this word wrong I will cut you) strikes. Assuming it's not on the magnitude of zomg Armageddon type strike ofc.
On March 14 2013 08:26 0x64 wrote: No, actually humanity has evolved into the opposite... Let's take zero risk and start investing infinite money into very small probability disasters... We are scared of global warming, nuclear, coal, cars, chemicals, food, electromagnetism... Each of those thing have their loonies wanting to put half of humanities production into stopping the danger of... We live, we improve, we must follow the mighty laws of economics, sure when we know the asteroid is coming, the price of anti-asteroid solution might be slightly skyrocketing.
Actually today I was wondering about this, if you know an asteroid will destroy a city of the size of lets say, Mexico city. Which will cause more suffering and damage in the long run, letting every get hit by surprise or evacuate 10's of millions of people. Of course we should try to save as many but the result might not be kill more in the long run? What do you think
Perhaps this is the best example of why a lot of people are starting to realize money is a huge factor holding people back from expanding technology and knowledge. Its the reason a lot of space missions never make it past the drawing board and a large contributor to why the space exploration programs have been making no progress further than the moon since '69.I wouldn't be surprised if there's other space-faring civilizations out there that most of them have long-since abandoned such concepts.
On March 14 2013 08:06 Ettick wrote: I think this is definitely something that should be looked into more deeply since asteroids can cause terrible, terrible damage to civilization. Imagine if an asteroid the size of New York hit the earth. Everyone would be fucked.
Well yeah, but if that is in the stars to happen, as they say, then we can't do anything about it anyway. GL having any effect on anything that big.
While I don't think there is necessarily a right or wrong decission to be made, I think we should accept there are some things we can't do anything about. I'm not as well educated on the topic as you, but I think resources would be better spent elsewhere, even just making a global pool fund to help in the aftermath of meteor (if someone corrects me that I'm using this word wrong I will cut you) strikes. Assuming it's not on the magnitude of zomg Armageddon type strike ofc.
Exactly, just how if a black hole happened nearby our solar system, we would be fucked, and there's nothing we could do about it, we are not at a point where we can afford to be doing something like this to worry about such a petty cause, of a few people dying once a decade.
Statisticl hippos are responsible for more deaths that meteors, maybe focus on solving those issues first?
On March 14 2013 08:06 Ettick wrote: I think this is definitely something that should be looked into more deeply since asteroids can cause terrible, terrible damage to civilization. Imagine if an asteroid the size of New York hit the earth. Everyone would be fucked.
Well yeah, but if that is in the stars to happen, as they say, then we can't do anything about it anyway. GL having any effect on anything that big.
While I don't think there is necessarily a right or wrong decission to be made, I think we should accept there are some things we can't do anything about. I'm not as well educated on the topic as you, but I think resources would be better spent elsewhere, even just making a global pool fund to help in the aftermath of meteor (if someone corrects me that I'm using this word wrong I will cut you) strikes. Assuming it's not on the magnitude of zomg Armageddon type strike ofc.
Exactly, just how if a black hole happened nearby our solar system, we would be fucked, and there's nothing we could do about it, we are not at a point where we can afford to be doing something like this to worry about such a petty cause, of a few people dying once a decade.
Statisticl hippos are responsible for more deaths that meteors, maybe focus on solving those issues first?
Now apply that argument to terrorism and the amount of money spent on fighting it by all developed nations.
I think that a system that is capable of changing the trajectory of an asteroid would also be capable of mass destruction here on Earth. If one were to be created it could be used as a weapon. Currently, I trust the world powers enough to support an asteroid shield, but others might disagree. I think we humans have come a long way towards world peace, even though we still have a long way to go.
There are also many more pressing issues than potential meteor strikes. The likelihood of anyone creating a functional system that can detect and alter the trajectory of asteroids is very small due to expenses, unless a devastating meteor strike occurs to cause people to change their minds and warrant funding for such a project.
Eventually, the Earth will be destroyed. If not by meteors, then by some other cosmic disaster. Probably the Sun overheating us or going supernova. Ultimately, I'd be more interested in funding a warp drive or other means of interstellar travel. Or how about building a large space station, or a moon base? These are things that would be better uses of money for space programs in my opinion. An observatory of some sort that detects astral bodies is also a prime example of this. I'm just not sure about the part that deflects/removes potentially dangerous asteroids.
I think that different methods of preventing meteor strikes should be discussed, I'd like to learn more. I've heard about missile defense ideas and I know most people reading this have seen the movie Armageddon, but there must be other, better ways to prevent meteor strikes than blowing them up.
On March 14 2013 08:51 FiWiFaKi wrote: The perspective here is astounding to me. I honestly believe that comets are the last of our worries, doing anything at this point is a waste of money.
If we find a rock big enough to destroy humanity, it'll be too late to stop it, plus, last time it has happened was a long time back, the odds are fine, if we worried about every single little threat nothing would be done.
I imagine doing this is very expensive, with all the needed infrastructure and need to hire smart people, to save what, maybe 100 out of 7 billion people in their lifetime?
Global issues, flaws of capitalism, poverty, rich getting richer, cancer, global warming, HIV, pollution, cultural differences are going to have a much larger impact to people, and those are the issues that need to be solved or improve first before we tackle something as insignificant as this.
I know you teach Micronesia, and you're a smart person, but this asteroid defence shield crap is one of the silliest things I've read on teamliquid for a while.
Neil Degrasse Tyson talked about using a rocket as a kind of gravitational tractor beam. You fly a large rocket next to the asteroid, and as gravity pulls them together, you continually edge the rocket away, and so deflect the asteroid. Just make sure you don't deflect it INTO the earth.
Look up his videos on the Apophis asteroid. Very cool.
EPT
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