Posted on 06/25/2017 6:50:35 AM PDT by SandRat
June 30th is “Asteroid Day.”
This international event is an effort to increase global awareness of the threat posed by the possibility of an asteroid impact. Established by a United Nations resolution in 2016, the June 30th date is in recognition of the anniversary of the “Tunguska Event.”
In 1908, a meteoroid exploded over a remote wooded area near the Stony Tunguska River in Russia, flattening 830 square miles of forest. The object, approximately 400 feet in diameter, that exploded in the atmosphere perhaps three to six miles above the ground, generated a destructive force 1,000 times greater than the Hiroshima atomic bomb. It remains the largest impact event in recorded human history, but certainly not the largest impact in Earth’s history.
Scientists point out that it’s not a matter of if Earth will be in the path of a killer asteroid but when. In fact, the earth is hit by large space rocks more often than you might think. The earth encounters objects as large at 13 feet in diameter about once a year on average. Objects around 22 feet in size impact about every five years. The object that exploded over Chelyabinsk Russia in 2013 was about 55 feet in diameter. It injured more than a thousand people. Events like Tunguska occur about every 2,000 to 3,000 years. We can expect to be hit by 1 km objects about every 500,000 years and a 5km object every 20 million years.
There are currently at least 2,000 objects with diameters of 1 km that will hit Earth in the next billion years. The asteroid thought to have caused the extinction of the dinosaurs was between 6 and 9 miles (9-14 km) across. It hit Earth just under 66 million years ago. Earth’s long history is punctuated with even larger impacts.
You must not interpret these odds as meaning that impact events are evenly spaced. They are not. While the probability that we will be hit by a large asteroid on any given day is incredibly low, the odds that we will be hit within the average time span are very high. No day is more or less likely than any other day.
In 1998, Congress tasked NASA with finding all objects near Earth larger than 1 km. By 2011 it was estimated that about 93% had been catalogued. Of the hundreds of known objects larger than 1km whose orbits take them near Earth, about 158 are potentially hazardous, meaning that they have the potential to impact the earth sometime in the future. As we saw in Chelyabinsk, however, considerably smaller objects also pose a serious risk and the inventory of those objects is far from complete.
The goal of Asteroid Day is to educate humanity about the threat and to encourage governments and organizations to increase efforts to detect these potentially hazardous objects and to develop the means to deflect or destroy a threatening space rock. You can visit https://asteroidday.org/our-mission/ to learn more about Asteroid Day and sign the 100x declaration.
The declaration is a grassroots initiative that calls for governments and private organizations around the world to employ available technology to detect and track Near-Earth Asteroids. It seeks a rapid hundred-fold acceleration of the discovery and tracking of Near-Earth Asteroids to 100,000 per year within the next 10 years.
Just one more horror to think about and quantify in one’s psyche.
The ones that cannot be seen are those to worry big time about - they come out from behind the sun before crossing Earth’s orbit. Very little warning - minutes to hours before crossing or impacting.
>>This international event is an effort to increase global awareness of the threat posed by the possibility of an asteroid impact.<<
Time to institute a global tax on capitalism to make sure this doesn’t happen!!!
Democrats will tell you this danger is caused by man made climate change, due to Republican policies. Half their voter base will believe it too.
When all the paleo-astronomers, such as Druids, Aztecs, Hindus, and such start doing “Asteroid Begone” dances and ceremonies, I might, as in I might win the next ten big lotteries in a row, then I might get excited.
I’m with SMOD!!!
Everybody Sing!
If the global warming don’t get ya,
the asteroid will !
Just another reason for the human diaspora.
Death from the sky. The good news is that global warming will be set way back.
So what?
This is the line I was thinking along. Wondered how long before someone would point to the financial aspect of this.
As a meteorite collector I am pro meteor strike.
Long ago we had a nice strike here in Northern Arizona, Close by what is now I-40.
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