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Yekaterina Pustynnikova / AP
In this photo provided by Chelyabinsk.ru, a meteor contrail is seen over Chelyabinsk on Friday, Feb. 15, 2013.
There aren't yet any advance warning systems that could give Earthlings a heads-up before an untracked space rock hits. But a telescope project in Hawaii aims to change that, and potentially provide a chance for those in threatened areas to evacuate. A meteor alert might have made a difference to Russia's Chelyabinsk region on Friday.
Read: Nuclear-like in its intensity, Russia meteor blast is largest since 1908
"There are excellent ongoing surveys for asteroids that are capable of seeing such a rock with one to two days' warning, but they do not cover the whole sky each night, so there's a good chance that any given rock can slip by them for days to weeks. This one obviously did," astronomer John Tonry of the Institute for Astronomy at the University of Hawaii told NBC News Friday.
Tonry is one of the key players in a NASA-backed effort to build ATLAS (Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System), two observatories in Hawaii that can simultaneously scan the entire visible sky twice a night.
"If ATLAS were up and running we might very well have seen" the meteor that hit Russia, he said, and "could have provided one to two days' warning."
However, he adds, the success of detection "depends on a couple of assumptions." One is that it's not cloudy. Another is that the asteroid doesn't go over the South Pole, "where ATLAS cannot see."
Telescopes, Tony said, "can only see the sky above the horizon, obviously. A telescope that's sited in the northern hemisphere (which ATLAS will be) cannot see all the way to the South Pole of the sky." And, "if the asteroid were coming from that direction, there's a good chance that it would never rise above the horizon for a northern telescope before it hits."
While it would "easy to build multiple copies of ATLAS and put some in the south, and spread them out so they see different weather patterns ... that's for the future," he said.
Dozens were hospitalized and nearly 1,000 residents suffered minor injuries from fallen debris and the impact of the meteor's powerful landing. NBC's Tom Costello reports.
The ATLAS telescopes are "just now" being built, Tonry said; ATLAS should "start running around the end of 2014 and be fully operational by the end of 2015." NASA has provided $5 million in funding for ATLAS.
At one time, NASA considered launching an asteroid-hunting probe, but that didn't go forward because of the cost, estimated at $500 million almost a decade ago.
Other private efforts are in the works, too.
Last year, leaders of the nonprofit B612 Foundation, including Apollo astronaut Rusty Schweickart, started a campaign to fund and launch a space telescope that will hunt for potential killer asteroids over the course of five and a half years.
Another venture, from a group called Planetary Resources, ultimately wants to do asteroid mining, but says its first step is to "launch an orbital fleet of 'personal space telescopes' capable of looking out into the heavens or back down on Earth," wrote Alan Boyle, NBC News.com's Science editor last year.
More about cosmic hits (and near misses):
- Streaking meteor explodes in Russian sky, injuring nearly 1,000
- Asteroid's close shave ranks among Earth's biggest hits (and misses)
- Meteorite from California fireball reveals its secrets
Suzanne Choney is a contributing writer for NBC News.com. You can follow her on Twitter.
NASA looks at the flyby of asteroid 2012 DA14 from several amateur observatories across Australia.
Leave a Comment:
Let's think about this one......
WARNING, WARNING, WARNING....... collision in six, five, four, three, two, one......... BOOM
That was a good $14.75 BILLION.........
"If ATLAS were up and running we might very well have seen" the meteor that hit Russia, he said, and "could have provided one to two days' warning."
Did you even read past the headline? The system would in fact have more lead time than your apparent attention span.
to Steve-446003: You are one funny dude!
Steve-446003, anti-science persons like you just go to show how dumb they are. The technology will clearly provide a much more advance warning. But sad pricks like you would've said the same thing for a weather forecasting system if one didn't already exist.
If Planetary Resources can build a few orbital telescopes to search for NEOs, the whole sky can be covered continuously, without worring about weather. Worth spending a Billion on, 5 million is not a serious effort. Shame on congress for cutting NASA funding.
Even if it did only catch it at the last minute, you could still issue a warning for people to stay away from glass windows, which would prevent injuries when the pressure wave/air burst arrives.
Who the hell they joking? Be decades from now when they can do that!
Our own defence system is lucky to spot a incoming missle and destroy it!
Not talking about those wimpy middle east studs, but real intercontinental missiles.
How will you know it is moving if it's coming directly at you? I heard this morning there was no warning because it couldn't be detected for that very reason. It also didn't show up on radar, it was to far away. More money wasted if you ask me.
The only defence we got is..we know where a intercontinental missile was launch from..and that means we will launch back..only defense we have so far. (accident or not)!
I know people who work for the DOD..its a fact!
A rock from space...all have to pray!
I can see those idiots in Congress now: "HUH?" ...."Which way did it go...???" ......
We are gonna have to wait until the saps in Washington figure out a way to make a buck off trying to find something that would kill us all- nothing will be built until the payoffs are delivered. The amount needed is chicken feed.
That would be of some use for a meteor such as the one which just struck in Russia, or perhaps for somewhat large one. People could evacuate the predicted impact site ...maybe.
But if we spotted a large meteor, say one a mile across, just two days before it hit?
2 days would just be time enough to [collectively] kiss our ass good-bye.
Hopefully an early warning system would spot the big ones sooner. Only a lead time of a several weeks would be adequate to prepare some means of deflecting or destroying such an object.
First, they're not talking about attempting to destroy an meteor that was discovered by this system, merely to provide warning that might allow some public safety measures to be put in place.
Second, there's less than an hour between the launch of an ICBM and its arrival. This system's goal is 24 to 48 hours notice.
I don't understand your question. The article explained why the meteor most likely wasn't detected (only a fraction of the sky is scanned each day), it had nothing to do with distance since NASA can detect objects way out in space. But, even if the new system didn't catch all of them, it would catch more than the current method. How can you call that wasted money?
Dear Confused,
A few facts. The asteroid/meteor came in from direction of the sun so it would have been visually difficult to see and as far as radar is concerned, where did you get that information? Are you saying that Russian air defence radar or North American systems failed to detect it? Are you privvy to that classified information? I suspect they did and recognized that it wasn't an incoming ICBM (thank goodness) and there wasn't time to do anything else. As another poster said all that could be done would be to warn people to stay away from windows. If Chelyabinsk residents were given say a days warning there could have been mass evacuation panic resulted likely in deaths when in fact the space rock did not hit the city. It would be a long shot for a meteor to hit a city.
Yes Blackbird,there is not a thing on this planet that could be going the speed that that rock was going at so they problably did surmise it was a rock..pretty intantaneous blip most likely too.Hey if people have a days' waring,then they can at least get chance to tape up windows and such or get the heck out..Its getting to the point where we can't have something like this airburst over a city even if it is 20 or 30 miles up,imagine what the shockwave would do to a jetliner flying below?Thank God there was'nt any aircraft in the vicinity...Anything's better than nothing IMO//
- Warning you that there's Zero chance of you getting out of the way in time. If you're standing next to someone hot, tongue-kiss them quickly, because you'll be dead before they slap you.
I wonder how much toilet paper was used after this happened?
Probably none, but I bet there was a run on new underwear! They are really lucky this thing didn't impact before it broke up.
Can we say Thank God For Our Stratosphere,lol..
Wake up call? Warning system?
How did we EVER live without this in the past?
Hey look, it's another avenue for Obama to waste tax-payer dollars.... WOOT!
I agree with Steve above and if the system has an audible alarm, instead of WOOOOOOGAAAaahhhh, WOOOOOOGAAAaahhhh, WOOOOOOGAAAaahhhh it should sound off with YOU'RE F*CKED, YOU'RE F*CKED, YOU'RE F*CKED!
Besides, a catastrophic meteor strike could be a good thing if it hits Iran.... gotta look at the bright side of life!
Where do dummies like this come from? We exist because the dinosaurs were wiped out by a meteor. Would you rather we went their way too? Think about it before you make a dumb comment again.
Seriously, what monkey's butthole does uneducated trash like you come from?
Or better yet, on your house.
Or better yet, on your house. Clean up our gene pool a bit.
Why are so many of you so ignorant and biased. According to you, the Obama administration is the only one that "wastes" funds. How about no-bid pharmaceuticals; how about two unfunded wars; how about the bridge to no where. You seem unwilling to mention any Republican "waste." That shows only ignorance and bias; nothing that resembles thinking.
A "warning system" cannot stop an asteroid in its tracks. If there were a big enough one to wipe out mankind, what could we do? Answer is - nothing. We have no capability to deflect an asteroid. Firing nukes at one, even if we could, would only get the world hit by more pieces, and radioactive ones at that. There is no existing rocket with the power to intercept an asteroid far enough from earth to have any chance of accomplishing anything. Besides even if a rocket could reach one, what could we do? There exists no capability to alter the trajectory of an asteroid, and totally destroying one is impossible. Bottom line; if we are "targeted", we are dead. Just like the dinosaur.
Ummm...no...actually there is somewhat of a plan in place to do something similar to what you mention and yes,we do have the ability to move something the size of a football field out of the way but,it does take a plan of action and to have a plan in place is far less of a waste of taxpayer dollars than the dollars we're spending on the ability to annialate ourselves in an afternoon dont ya think?Make a bit more sense maybe??
this rock was about the size of the one that made METEOR CRATER in Arizona - but that one entered vertically
Man I sure pissed off a bunch of idiot liberals didn't I. I looooove to see a plan come togethor perfectly!
AB-1981
Actually we need a good hard meteor strike if it helps cleanse the world of people like you!
Only one that made sense in reply to me was Jim.. thanks Jim for strengthening my faith in human intelligence.
All the rest of you SHUTUP and get back into the welfare line for your free check....
Hmmm... Five hundred million dollars to help ensure the survival of our species is too much, yet we run up a sixteen TRILLION dollar deficit to pay for our welfare state.
I guess asteroids don't matter as long as everyone gets their food stamps.
and gee, that "welfare state" includes funds for 2 worthless military actions, too (over 1/3 of if) getta you head outa your rectal cavity
Not worthless at all...
It.. is... AMAZING to me how idiot liberals brag about how "Obama got Bin-Laden" when A: he didn't and B: Bin-Laden will still be alive and plotting if it weren't for these "2 worthless military actions".
Man what a load of hypocrisy.... seriously...
And these fairy dust farting, unicorn riding, welfare pulling hypocrites actually think they are in touch with reality enough to know what is best for America? Man our voting laws need re-vamping, or I fear that in the near future we will be paying taxes to protect dragon habitats......
And why do liberals always talk about anus's... oh wait nevermind.. already know that answer.
I am already planning the pre-Apocalyptic Party Planner, what with all my new found Wealth and all.
"Did I tell you my Dad is the President of Jamaica, and owns Air Jamaica and all the resorts? What are you drinking, my dear, on me. We'll make plans later. Let's go somewhere more private."
I just gotta hope she doesn't have a TV or iPhone... LOL
Because that would be all I was thinking about. <S>
As I said in a previous post lunar observatories could give better than earth based systems. The costs are worth it if it can save lives.
An automated telescope near the lunar north pole could send data that would cover the most populated areas of the earth and give quicker response than earth based units.
Space based telescopes could cover the entire sky without the extra energy cost of landing something on the moon. US Space command is giving NASA an orbiting Keyhole (spy) satellite and they are deciding how to allot the time. I suggest a great deal of it be used searching for near earth objects.
Yeah, real bright idea--use a system designed specifically for high-magnification surveillance of ground objects to search for objects in space. Waste of resources. How much of the sky do you think that Keyhole satellite could survey in a day? You need a system designed specifically for the purpose to do effective whole-sky surveys on a daily basis.
Well Iall I'm sayin is that God help us if there were a jet plane full of passengers below when something like this happens.An airburst would tear the plane apart instantly.So yea,IMO it would be worth taxpayer money to set up some sort of a plan of action in the event something like this happans again,for everyones use.We're at the point in our technological development where we do have the ability to protect ourselves from events such as this.Now it's whether we're smart enough to do it.J. It makes a hell of a lot more sense to use surveillance equipment that we all paid for to protect all living things on the planet,dont you think?And you think its a waste of resources.OK,go to church thinkin that..see what Jesus says about that.We do need a better system regarded,we're just using whats available now.
go get an engineering degree and THEN analyze your claim
Easy. These size meteoroids (0.3 - 1.0 meters) crash into the atmosphere several times per year, but most are never seen because vast regions of Earth are unoccupied. To have one come in over a city of 1,000,000 at dawn when viewing conditions are optimum is going to be a rarity. Lots of broken windows and great video.
It makes sense to build an early detection system for meteoroids bigger than > 10m (size before incineration shrinkage). Killer asteroids > 10m in size might arrive only once every few 100 years, and > 100m size, once every million or more. A 25m meteorite that lands in the ocean could kill many people via a tidal wave spreading over a vast area.
They are estimating this one at about 15 meters or a bit bigger and around 7,000 tons. Coming in at about 40,000 miles per hour.
That's pretty big. It was lucky that this came in at such a low angle. If it had come straight in, it would have been a lot worse, passing through less atmosphere.
I am a bit surprised they didn't see this coming, even with only minutes warning. With the low angle I'd almost think the track might show up on infrared weather satellite images. Not quick enough to do anything at that point as it was probably down by the time the signals would get processed, but I'm curious if it ever got picked up by anything before that last few seconds when people saw it.
"It was lucky that this came in at such a low angle. If it had come straight in, it would have been a lot worse," No dought about that 1NewDay. That City was very lucky it did what it did.
roughly the size of the one that crashed in Arizona (made the meteor crater) - straight in approach - almost vertical
If there is a killer asteroid coming, I would rather not know and hope it hits my house while I sleep.
Or I would rather the Earthlings deflect it in time...
well, the way I see that it that the only chance they would have to do that would be with a Nuclear ICBM. If that approach is taken, what do you think the results of a nuclear detonation above earth would be? It would probably create such a high emp that it would knock out all of the communications around the globe and at best split the astroid, allowing two parts to strike the earth instead of one. It would take a warhead much larger than we would use on strikes against other countries to wipe out the population in large cities. What if this created a nuclear winter, that allowed everyone down here to freeze to death slowly. Nope, rather it just hit me head on and get it over with.
NASA has commenced sucking ingredients of the rectum. Goodbye, nasa. You're FINISHED! You @!$%#ing suck.
A warning system for meteor strikes is a wast of money because even a direct hit from a nuke would not stop a substantial meteor like the one that blew up over russia. At the speeds they travel they would be beyond the nuke's blast before the blast reached full power, and thats assuming you could even accurately target a nuke onto such a fast moving target deep in space.
So now you're an expert on all the different possible technologies that exist for meteor avoidance, huh? Did you even read http://science.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/15/16977657-system-to-vaporize-dangerous-asteroids-is-in-the-works?lite ?
If the object is spotted early enough, covering one side of it with white mylar can change the trajectory enough to save us by re radiating solar energy. The earlier it is detected the easier it is to do something about it.
Nope. The only real course would be to send a team to drill the roid using fracking methods and then put a nuke down its throat and blow it apart from the inside.
Little roids could be taken out with special missiles where a station on the Moon would launch them in an effort to break apart the roid before the drilling team arrives.
There is no other way.
So if one of them is going to hit dead center in Manhattan you wouldn't want to evacuate the place?
As for "the speeds they travel", whatever you use to intercept them just has to travel at the same speed. We do know how to do this--I would say it isn't rocket science, but, well, it is.
AB-1981, that system to "vaporize asteroids" is a pipe dream. We don't have the technology to vaporize a missile or an bomber, let along an asteroid. Some day maybe but not likely in this century.
Hurricane and tornado warnings save a great number of lives. Are they a waste of money because we don't have the technology to actually prevent those weather events?
Wow, such POSITIVE people. What gets you out of bed in the morning, the hope that we'll all die before the liberal of the week cons you out of your money? My dog leaves more personality in the back yard.
The only political part of this is the refusal to spend sufficient money to see these things before it's too late.
Doesn't it seem a little ironic that we are exploring mars and we haven`t safeguarded the destruction of earth from asteroids? maybe we missed some priorities..
Yours is probably the most intelligent reaction in this bunch. So true.
We cannot do both at once?
Another Tunguska event WILL BE DEVASTATING !!! Better get that Defensive Warning system up NOW !!!
The Earth has been very lucky to not encounter a planet killer that would destroy Earth.
Basically the Solar System that we live in is surrounded by an immense field of asteroids and comets called the Oort Cloud.
Although the Oort Cloud protects the Sol System from alot of space debris there is going to be a time when the impact between an object from outside the Oort Cloud and the Oort Cloud will send a planet killer directly towards Earth.
Uranus, Neptune, Saturn, Jupiter and Mars will not be able to protect us if the planet killer finds its way through their gravity systems.
This why humanity needs to establish a forward system of tracking objects and a method for destroying them before they impact Earth and kill us all.
Some will say that it will not happen in our lifetime. Others will say that the cost is too expensive and that we should let God determine our fate in such a manner.
But such people are of Satan and worship Satan and like Satan do not want any human above them and would rather have all humanity die because of such loathing.
Building a system that would protect humanity is what Creation wants humanity to do so that the continuity of the human species will continue to create. To create is to remember the Creator that remembers us when we create. To not create such a system is too be shackled to the walls of Satan's dungeon by those in his army that say nevermind such things and "Keep it Simple."
Such a fight is for man is divine as it involves destroying the notion of Satan that would otherwise desire to destroy humanity so that the link between the Creator and humanity would be severed so that Satan could claim another species as a trophy in his fight against Creation.
Humanity has not been paying attention. The asteroids are getting closer with each asteroid. This means that something big is headed our way.
Its our charge to make certain that the continuity of humanity survives.
go get yourself into a hole in a mountain.
You were doing fine, until you mentioned Satan.
you DO understand that those outer planets' gravity fields are tiny tiny tiny compared to the SPACE around them?
gee - just think religion and astrophysics... fu ck religion - the opium of the masses.
can you guys stop talking about what could be and what we need and tell more about where the metheor in russia came from, if was a piece of the big one or a satellite that got knocked out. i mean something substantial and not what we do not know and how good would be if we had this and that!
To heck with the little ones like this! How about the citybuster ones we don't see in time to stop - like the one that flew by today. It was found less than a year ago - and if anyone thinks that's time enough to mount a mission to stop it, think again. We;re not even quite sure HOW to stop it. Would a big bomb move it - or make multiple fragments that would be worse? I don't know - and neither does anyone else.
We can develop an array of different nuclear warheads to hit it with (including MIRV warheads), but we will need to rely upon computer simulation to tell us which warheads to use. I do wish we would position a powerful laser in Earth orbit, not to destroy these space bodies directly, but just to vaporize several small patches on the surface so we can determine the makeup of the asteroid or comet. This will help us to know which warheads to use. I have urged many times that our international community work together to build a standing arsenal of Deep Space Ballistic Missiles (DSBMs), since it might take several hits by these warheads to slow down, deflect, or destroy these threats. I think a couple dozen of these DSBMs should prove quite adequate, provided they are large enough to deliver the necessary goods. - RC
That "little one" is a "citybuster". Perhaps you missed the part where it blew with an explosive yield of 500 kilotons? That's more than 10 times the size of the bomb that took out Hiroshima. Fortunately it was not over a city when it exploded. The larger one would have yielded about 3 megatons--would have done more damage but not a huge amount more.
As for the idea of "developing an array of different nuclear warheads", first we have to repeal the various treaties that prohibit the use of nuclear weapons in space. This assumes that nuclear weapons will even be effective--for some types of object they can make things worse instead of better.
As for "where it came from", there's all sorts of debris left over from the formation of the solar system, this is one example of such debris.
And that thing was just your average sized boulder 10 or 15 m across and weighing 7000 pounds,I havethese kinds of boulders scattered all over my property here from our last ice age 11,000 years ago(and they're are a pain in the *ss trust me,lol..well more like a pain in my back when it comes to moving and cutting them up but thats another story)Yea I think this will make this issue a bit more (pardon the pun god this is awful)down to Earth when it comes to being a serious hazard.It is.And it is something we can do something about..Thunderstorms,tornadoes,hurricanes,etc are beyond our realm,there's too much energy and mass involved all at once,but to be able to at least detect, move or destroy a rock thats a mile wide and going 40,000 mph IS within our realm of being able to do someting positive with what we have at hand.It's realistic because this is a realistic hazard.Doesn't happen often but when it does it does a hell of a lot of damage.
Interesting blogs! Russians have been injured and there is a whole lot of American science grad students, space research advocates and near-earth object aficionados who are now wanting more money for "deflecting near-earch asteroids".
This is the kind of psychology and behavior that makes people wonder if this was created by Space Cowboys who deliberately sent a missile into 2012 DA 14 asteroid to see if the asteroid could be deflected...and part of it fell in Russia.
Or that some American base somewhere used this event with the asteroid 2012 DA 14 to send missiles into Russia and blame it on naughty asteroids.
There is a lot of international investigations going on as this so-called meteor in Russia fell close to a nuclear plant.
So stop this "obsession with asking for money whenever an event like this occurs...even when people are hurt!"
Or else people would ask "No connection to 2012 DA 14..really?"
More and more people are going to say, "Yehhhh! I believe this one in 900 trillion chance of two near earth objects passing or coming to the world on the same day...but global peace is impossible!"
No suitcase bomb in the border between Canada and the US!
Some scientists have become impractical beggars for more research money to investigate certain events...just when people are injured or dying of an event.
Have some humanity guys!
Who wants to investigate the cost of "these kinds of research" and start asking your Senators to put a permanent bill in place that says, "No more money for Cowboy Science or Cowboy Space Science until everyone has food, education and health care in the world"?
Got it!
While I would agree that there is an element of "grant seeking" I would submit that the threat is real and a certain amount of research needs to be done. I know a few of these researchers personally and they are definitely not "cowboys" more like geeky misfits... actually fitting the stereotype...
By the way as a "Dr. MS" I assume Doctor in Medical Science perhaps? Does that mean that I should talk to you about Earth Science? Foolish, shall I talk to my old graduate adviser about a prostate exam?
The funding topic for detection and general research of asteroids has been under discussion for 50 years. It's appropriate for a more robust one after the events of the last 48 hours. The amount of money we're talking about to provide a phase 1 early detection system, catalog NEO's, and vastly increase our knowledge of asteroids is relatively small. Consider that in 2009, people in the US spent $45B on just their pets -- in 2011, it surpassed $50B. Then consider that NASA's current budget - in total (all programs) - is just less than $18B. The portion devoted to this effort would be difficult to find even in NASA's budget. I don't advocate Fido or Tabby should go hungry, but maybe they could do with 1 less chew toy or skip a weeks' worth of catnip so we could know a little more about the solar system that affects us all. It's all relative - but we spend an increasing amount of money on an increasing number of things that don't affect humanity nearly as much as the orbital mechanics that will ultimately determine our fate.
So, people are going to use this event to push their case for increased funding? So, what? Often, it takes a "wake up" event like this to get things moving. Think of American scientific complacency until the Soviets launched Sputnik. Unfortunately, that was another generation and the anti-science crowd seems to be resurfacing.
"until everyone has food, education, and healthcare in the world."
People cant have food, education, healthcare if they are dead. Google 'Tunguska Event'. Also remember what killed the dinosaurs.
The problem with feeding, educating, and healthcaring everyone in the world is that it when you do that, they have children, which also need feeding, educating, and healthcaring, and they have children, and on and on. The expense of doing this eventually elevates to unsustainable levels. Humans don't just reach a harmonious population level, we keep breeding until we consume more than the environment can provide. Then we die, en mass. Look at the population graphs of humans? Do you really think we can keep this up without some sort of calamity?
I can't help thinking of the adage: Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime. But what if he lives someplace where there is no fish and you just keep feeding him? He becomes reliant upon you to keep giving him fish. What happens when you don't have any more fish to give him? War and or starvation.
n't cowboy science anymore my friend this is real..and yes we can do something about it.We use our atmosphere for a lot of everyday tasks besides breathing.Thank Earth or God or whatever you want for that stratosphere over our heads thats thick and heavy enough to be able to generate enough friction and henceforth heat to be able to destroy it before it does vastly more damage.But, that being said,think now if there had been a plane full of passengers within 20 miles of that event..End of story for those folks...dead...gone..plane would have been torn apart from the shock wave.Yeah.Thats for real..Now does something of a warning system or defense system make financial sense?So,call it cowboy science if you want but it seems to me highly stupid of us as a race to have the ability to destroy all life on this planet for all eternity in an afternoon but not be able to detect and destroy a 10 ton rock moving at 40,000 mph for the purpose of defending 1 million people from annialation.What do you think makes sense?Thank God this time the rock came in @ a low angle and was destroyed with minimal damage and injury,next time we may not be so lucky.We've developed to the point in our sentience where we have to be responsible for the Earth we live on and yes that does mean cosmic protection to some extent.We realize now (I hope) how special the planet we live on is..for me I don't want to see it all get destroyed(including myself) because of an event that we could have prevented from happening do you?
Why is Russia getting all the cool stuff?
The solar system is throwing rocks at the earth. I think it is trying to tell us something
oops
Yes! It's telling us to pay attention to physics and astrophysics, and look out below! :)
Just wait till a slightly bigger one hits a major city and a million people get fried. We had no idea this one was coming either. No warning system can save us from something we can't find in the first place.
I'm a physicists and this is ridiculous. Spending billions and even trillions of dollars to warn against something that has been happening before Aram left Uz. You can't stop it and pin pointing the location that it is going to impact or detonate above is impossible. One could give maybe a 1 or 2 day warning to half of the globe and narrow it down to one continent. Then there is the idea to vaporize the smaller ones on the way in (like the one today) using a high powered space based laser system. Well, that's a few more trillions of dollars and it will trigger another arms race. Once it's up in orbit there is nothing stopping from turning it downward.
So, discouragedinMI, you're saying that it's not possible to determine the ground track of a meteor? What kind of "physicist" are you, clearly not anybody who has ever had to take a class in orbital mechanics, if you think that that is "impossible". Where it will explode, if it explodes before it hits the ground, is harder I agree, but suppose the next one explodes over New York or Tokyo or London and we did nothing. How will you feel then?
Or is your real problem that you didn't get the grant you wanted?
Even if the best that could be done was narrow the impact down to one continent, it would be a vast improvement over the current system. For instance, relief forces could be put on alert. Populations could be warned to take deep shelter, etc.... It isn't perfect, but the saying "half a loaf is better than none" is still apt.
Awww...great!! Preppers will be all over this.... but now we create a NEW prep society of Space Preppers!!! Another bunch of wackos and reality show.
Too funny,,,,
Actually, civil preparedness is a good thing. I live in Bakersfield CA and if there is an earthquake, I have enough food and drinking water for several weeks, and can cook without electricity or gas if I have to. That way, I can help my family members and we won't be as much of a burden on FEMA/ Salvation Army/Red Cross/etc. and so free up more resources for those who perhaps cant get to their supplies or had their supplies damaged or destroyed in the initial disaster, or didn't have any supplies to begin with. Granted, this meteor event was a more rare event, but people who live in hurricane prone areas and also earthquake prone areas are more aware of the need for civil preparedness.
With sufficient warning, local boarding up and evacuation is a reasonable option for a small meteor or asteroid threat like the one which struck Russia a couple of days ago. It becomes much more problematic in many areas of the world for anything very much larger. Once the expected power of the blast is in the megatons range, interception becomes the best option. Maybe we just have to leave it up to individual countries to come up with their own SDI solutions to this cosmic threat, in light of the general lack of interest by the international community when it comes to creating a global defense system. - Rick Carter
What the ????
The trouble is, who is going to take responsibility for a mid ocean strike which can create a huge tsunami? - RC
If the Russians had known there was a incoming meteor, they could have been told NOT to run to their windows, but stay away from them. How could NASA, or our government put a price on saving our planet from being hit by a big rock? Seems like they wouldn't care what it takes to save themselves, and us.
NASA's budget is determined by Congress. Unfortunately, Congress is populated with scientific idiots like Marco Rubio who said “whether the Earth was created in 7 days, or 7 actual eras, I’m not sure we’ll ever be able to answer that.” Perhaps he should have paid more attention in geology class. And, let's not forget the scientific genius (a member of the House science committee) who claimed that women can't get pregnant from a "true rape."
I think if you get hit by one of those, your time is definitely up.