Posted on 04/26/2019 7:37:54 PM PDT by BenLurkin
They hope to learn the best strategies for responding to a potential strike, starting from the moment a threatening asteroid is first detected by astronomers.
NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office will team up with other partners to perform a “tabletop exercise” on how they’d handle the news of a (fictional) asteroid on a collision course with Earth.
On March 26, 2019, astronomers discover an asteroid in the night sky, far dimmer than Pluto to their telescopes. They name it 2019 PDC. Initially, it appears that the asteroid’s eccentric orbit bring it within approximately 18 times the Moon’s distance from the Earth, with a chance of hitting the Earth at one in 50,000 in 2027.
Astronomers continue to track the object as it gets closer. They learn it could be somewhere between 100 and 300 meters wide—the size of a skyscraper. After a month of tracking, the probability of collision with Earth is now 1 percent—the threshold at which international organizations have agreed they must take action.
Its potential paths intersect the United States, some of western Africa, and the Atlantic and the Pacific Ocean.
The fictional 2019 PDC describes a “potentially hazardous asteroid,” the kind that orbits close to Earth and that could have a catastrophic impact if it actually struck the planet.... The new simulation instead will focus less on the scientific questions, and more on governmental response.
This simulation is the sixth near-Earth-object impact exercise that NASA has taken part in. Not only do these exercises help NASA officials think through what they’d do in the event of a threat, but they also help them know what information is most important to FEMA and other agencies.
(Excerpt) Read more at gizmodo.com ...
Excellent choice of music for the last selection ever heard! :)
Where did they put the speakers though?
Buy your ammunition and pass the popcorn.
I wonder if the government would react differently to a simulated strike if the trajectory would take it toward Tallahassee?
As if they have it going over Cleveland: “The Best Location in the Nation”
If this were an actual asteroid impact, the trail of dots would be brown, not red..
Call me paranoid and you might be just a little bit right lol, but I’ve had the sneaking suspicion for years now that we’re heading into an era of heightened risk of asteroid strike. I think that Mayan calendar deal was tied to it, their ages ended when the planet entered this, it’s cyclical and could be known.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.