This past Monday, March 1st, an asteroid whizzed by Earth, flying between the Earth and the moon, just 66,000 km away from us. It was at least 65 feet wide (possibly more than double that), and was travelling 12 miles per second. Now that’s hardly an extinction level event, but it sure would hurt. One of those lands on a small town and we’ll start to remember to respect that which falls from the sky.
Here’s the full article.
Ok - there’s good news and bad news. I always start with bad news.
The bad news is that the presence of large amounts of solar particles near the Earth’s magnetic field show that the shield that normally keeps these particles out isn’t in good shape. We’re in the low point of the solar cycle at this point, but when it picks up around 2012, we can expect this solar issue to “interfere with satellites’ power sources, endanger spacewalkers, and even knock out power grids on Earth.”
The good news is, the cool ass colors in the aurora found at the Earth’s poles will be magnified and intensified as solar activity increases.
Full story here.
Know your enemy!
If an asteroid was on course to hit Earth, one of the best things to know, apparently, would be its composition. The strategy for dealing with it can change depending on what it’s made of. My guess is that it comes down to just how solid and strong it is, and thus how severe the measures taken have to be.
Read some more about it here.
If we’re concerned for our long-term survival, we should pay attention to all other instances of extinctions, past and present, and take notes. Whether plague monkeys that remind us of ourselves through their faces and genetic similarity, or dinosaurs with whom we’re connected as far as planetary domination, we’d be wise to acknowledge fragility, and humble ourselves in cautious preparation.
The general consensus is that an asteroid crash wiped out the dinosaurs. How unlikely was that? Well, a 100m asteroid hits the planet every century or so. The one that hit the dinosaurs was a lot bigger, sure, but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen again. So what are we thinking of doing if we look up and see one coming straight for us? Well, we won’t blow it to smithereens, since that’ll just mean a load of chunks smashing into us anyway. The current plan of a team of Scottish scientists is to use an appropriate number of spacecraft (depending on the size of the rock) coordinating equally many mirrors to redirect beams of sunlight at it on a concentrated spot to heat it thousands of degrees and knock it off course.
I feel like this was figured out by the children of the Cold War scientists who considered using live chickens to regulate temperature in nuclear land mines. If an asteroid is going to smash into us eventually, I hope it’s once this technology is fully operational and no better (read: sane) solution has been proposed. I’d really love to see this tried. That is the draw of end of the world scenarios, after all. Ludicrous reality entertainment on the most massive scale. Not that I’m itching for it to happen, but it’s the ultimate opportunity for narrative there can really be, is it not?
Read more about it here.
So never mind the illness from space that the people of Peru had to endure. New scientific evidence gives us the lowdown on bugs in space. Apparently, Salmonella typhimurium bacterial bugs mutate, thrive, and get worse amongst the stars. Researchers noticed that mice were three times as likely to die from the new variations.
Good to know that even if we manage to get away from this planet before it’s completely ruined, we can still all die from sicknesses that actually work better off the planet.
Read more here.
