Asteroid + Earth Impacts: rising probability... 4141

On Fri, 29 Jul 2005, BMJ

The readings I've done so far say we don't have squat to deal with a colliding asteroid. Tempel 1 was not an asteroid. I've seen some published images of asteroids, but have close-up images of any comets been published? I don't know. Comets are more spectacular but much more rare.

I'll leave it to the guys who have the funding and hardware to figure this out.

And, what I hear on that is there is not agreement on what, exactly, to do.

I'm sure there are a lot of things out there that we don't know about. A few of them may even have brains.

Some people might consider these past records of impacts quite rare. Arizona's Meteor Crater is evidence of something that probably could wipe out New York City if you considered blast and ground vibrations besides the crater. The 1907 ? Tunguska ? event (Siberia) leveled hundreds of square miles but without making a crater. In geological time scales, lots of impacts were created (the rock whips have written about this).

The Jupiter impacts back, what, a decades ago now, were quite spectacular and easily observable from space. If anything like those cometary objects hit Earth, less than about a tenth the diameter of Jupiter, we'd not only be wiped out, but there would probably become another asteroid belt where Earths orbit is now. Then, how did the existing asteroid belt get formed?

Point for reflection?

Getting back to the original topic: best we can hope for is detection and accurate calculation of impact probability, date, size, data and if in a populated area tell everyone to get the hell out, ASAP after they zero in on the ground zero area.

Based on the reliability of our space vehicles today, I'd say if we had to deliver a nuclear warhead to a coliding asteroid (or send up an anti-balistic missle missle) based on a detection in the next few years, I would not invest in that project or bet on its success. Put an infrastructure in space? Oh, boy, how would the world react to megatons of nuclear warheads stored in orbits in space around Earth (under the pretense of protection from asteroids)? Think we got political problems now?