When Asteroids Attack

Inspired by last night's Perseids Meteor Shower, Wired has compiled a photographic survey of the 10 largest craters found on earth caused by direct impact with planetary objects.

Asteroid Impact Craters on Earth Seen From Space

The most impressive was a 3-mile wide Asteroid that left an impact crater 43-miles wide and caused mass extinction of 60% of all live on earth.

Considering the recent impact on Jupiter and the F-Ring of Saturn, this seemed like an appropriate time to bring up the impact of celestial objects upon the Earth and what it would mean to life on our planet.

In particular, I thought the final sentence on the last page was pretty funny...

Fortunately, NASA says nothing this big is headed our way anytime soon.

It would seem that both NASA and Wired see fit to take every opportunity to assure people that Nibiru/PlanetX/Septimus does not exist. Maybe someone should ask NASA exactly what they mean by "soon"? I guess that means I can keep my dentist appointment for next week, but I shouldn't be worrying about my retirement...or soon as in that nothing big is headed our way for another billion years?

reply to post by fraterormus


Yes, NASA would know...
This is the same NASA who caught the first glimpse of the huge asteroid that missed the Earth - just barely - on Friday, June 14th, 2002... three DAYS after it had passed by.

BTW: "attack" would imply conscious malicious action. Aren't you being a bit harsh on asteroids? ;-)


LATER EDIT:

I just reread the article hyperlinked above... and I just HAVE to quote some of the pearls of wisdom to be found in it, because they are (if only tangentially) relevant to this thread. (The emphasis is mine.)

Far from being a cause of concern, the discovery of NEA 2002 MN was another example of the success of the Spaceguard effort in general, and of the LINEAR program in particular. Similar concerns were expressed following the discovery of 2002 EM7 two months ago, but there is no cause for "doom and gloom" in either of these asteroids.

I'll remind you that the "success" the author is talking about is the discovery of the asteroid - which was about the size of a soccer field - three days after it had missed the Earth by less than 1/3 LD... It sounds like something Goebbels might have said after Stalingrad.

Indeed, there is "no cause for doom and gloom"... provided the asteroids keep missing us - certainly through no merit of NASA. (I wouldn't be mentioning its inevitable helplessness at all, if it weren't for the author's ridiculous tooting NASA's collective horn and treating the general readership as idiots.)


And of course, then there is this heart-stopping blurb:

It makes no difference if a NEA is discovered on approach or departure from the vicinity of the Earth. We don't give extra points for an approaching NEA or demerits for one that has already passed the Earth at discovery. The only effect of "blind spots", whether they be due to sunlight or moonlight or bad weather or lack of a southern hemisphere survey telescope, is to slow down the completion of the NEA catalog.

I do agree with him on one point: it makes no difference if they discover it 'on approach or departure from the vicinity of Earth'...
He's darn right about that one.









[edit on 12-8-2009 by Vanitas]

Well, we may get to see a live impact in a few weeks, on Mars:
www.sunjournal.com...

An asteroid similar to the one that flattened forests in Siberia in 1908 could plow into Mars sometime in the next few weeks, scientists said. Researchers attached to NASA's Near-Earth Objects Program, who like to call themselves the Solar System Defense Team, have been tracking the asteroid for days.

What would we do if that thing were headed for Earth?

Originally posted by Vanitas
BTW: "attack" would imply conscious malicious action. Aren't you being a bit harsh on asteroids? ;-)

I was just following Fox Programming in the naming convention of the thread. They've had "When Animals Attack", "When Tornadoes Attack", "When Hurricanes Attack", "When Fox News Attacks", etc.

But you are right, Asteroids aren't sentient or conscious...or are they?

Awesome link, fraterormus! The pictures are nice.

I have researched impact craters all over the planet before, from Russia to Australia and even in between. They are everywhere!

For NASA to make a claim that nothing big is headed this way is a little egotistical, is it not? What I mean is, how big is "big"? I think we are a little overdue in our recent impacts. In other words, a big one is due.
The one in Russia exploded in the air, supposedly. So not really an "impact" on the ground.

We can see alot of things impact the Earths atmosphere everyday, no where near the size of the ground impacts of the past, but still big, visually speaking.

Right now?

Watch it come and write blogs about it.

Hopefuly with more understanding getting out into the populace as a whole we'll eventually be able to have a tax payer funded reponse in place. Monitoring, experimentation, dry runs, etc.

But probably not until one plows into a city.

I heard a few years ago on the news that neither NASA or FEMA would not alert the public if there was there was an imminent collision, so..... I guess we're all up sh*t creek.

Excellent! Thank you Frat.

Nasa: "hmmm...didn't see THAT one coming."

Can anyone name any "Near Miss" or recent Asteroid collision with another planetary body in our Solar System that NASA detected or observed first?

All of the impacts and near misses have been detected by Amateur Astronomers first. NASA just has the tools to catch the aftermath in images better than the Amateurs can...but only after Amateurs detected them.

The recent Jupiter impact, the largest we have ever witnessed in recorded history, wasn't discovered by NASA. The pictures NASA provided were nice, but they came to the party awfully late.

It doesn't give one much optimism in the accuracy of NASA's claims. Granted, it's a BIG Sky out there, and there are only so many resources to assign at any given moment, but perhaps they should refrain from making sweeping claims when they clearly don't have a handle on what is coming or not.

Granted, it's a BIG Sky out there, and there are only so many resources to assign at any given moment, but perhaps they should refrain from making sweeping claims when they clearly don't have a handle on what is coming or not.

They don't have a handle on it?
They - OK, a single individual, but implicitly in their collective name - are calling their most blatant failures - a "success".

That statement alone should be enough to make people run for cover.

I am sorry to be harping on this particular point, but I find it scandalous as well as ridiculous.
(And because I edited my original reply later on, some people may have missed the relevant quotes I am alluding to here.)



[edit on 12-8-2009 by Vanitas]