Posted on 03/19/2013 7:28:06 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - NASA chief Charles Bolden has advice on how to handle a large asteroid headed toward New York City: Pray.
That's about all the United States - or anyone for that matter - could do at this point about unknown asteroids and meteors that may be on a collision course with Earth, Bolden told lawmakers at a U.S. House of Representatives Science Committee hearing on Tuesday.
An asteroid estimated to be have been about 55 feet in diameter exploded on February 15 over Chelyabinsk, Russia, generating shock waves that shattered windows and damaged buildings. More than 1,500 people were injured.
Later that day, a larger, unrelated asteroid discovered last year passed about 17,200 miles from Earth, closer than the network of television and weather satellites that ring the planet.
The events "serve as evidence that we live in an active solar system with potentially hazardous objects passing through our neighborhood with surprising frequency," said Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, a Texas Democrat.
"We were fortunate that the events of last month were simply an interesting coincidence rather than a catastrophe," said Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, a Texas Republican, who called the hearing to learn what is being done and how much money is needed to better protect the planet.
NASA has found and is tracking about 95 percent of the largest objects flying near Earth, those that are .62 miles or larger in diameter.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Thank you, I do that every time ... you would think I would learn. LOL!
Don’t worry. Mayor Bloomberg just has to say that asteroids are not allowed in NYC.
Only if it is over 16 oz.
Unless things have changed in the last decade, there are far fewer amateur observers of Southern Hemisphere space than the Northern Hemisphere. We should subsidize a whole bunch of amateur astronomers especially in Australia and South America.
‘Bolden has advice on how to handle a large asteroid headed toward New York City.’
Let the Alec Baldwins, Bill Mahers, Matt Damons and Sena Penns pray to their Gods.
We have already sacrificed enough of our sons for those POS’s.
I agree there is little chance at this point of detecting and diverting a large asteroid.
However, this is at root a policy and fiscal issue, not a technological one. It is well within our tech capabilities, but we choose not to do so because we have other priorities.
Pretty short-sighted, IMO.
Reminds me of this scene:
In slowed down video of the meteor something appears to zap it from behind.
ET has been shutting down nuke missiles since the 1960's and there is now extensive testimony from both US and Soviet officers (including colonels and generals) publicly confirming that fact.
Some think they had in some way reduced the radiation from Fukushima.
Who knows.
Keeping an eye on us crazy monkeys?
I'm gonna photobucket it, I am...
Yes, it’s a wonderful image. I found it on a rather odd blog that appears otherwise worthless. Haven’t tracked down the actual source yet...
Thanks for that video.. Hadn’t seen that one! Incredible audio of the crackling sounds from the.. ‘meteor’? That contrail looks like pulsed exhaust from a SCRAM jet!
A mile wide happens more often than that; the 10-mile-plus bolides which produced the major paleontological boundaries are only tens of millions of years apart (and not on any exact schedule) and the Ries impact (and a probably simultaneous, smaller impact) was less than 15 million years ago, and the impactor is estimated at less than a mile in diameter.
The key to preventing large impacts is early detection; with that, even large impactors can be deflected just a little, enough to avoid collision with Earth.
http://www.impact-structures.com/
Or it could be the Iranians nuke Rome!
Sooooo .. this may explain what happened to the dinosaurs ..??
It’s a factor...
Some of your relatives, friends or neighbors could be visiting NYC or San Francisco when it hit?
I don’t wish for anyone’s death, despite their misguided politics. That said....I do think that God will handle things the way that only God can (and has in the past).
Actually wasn’t the last pope supposed to have been just elected? Yet he is not “Peter the Roman”!
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