BellaOnline Forums Education Astronomy Not the end of the world - but it could be

Today is Asteroid Day.

How many times have you heard someone say, "Well, it's not the end of the world"? And, of course, that's true. But there are things lurking out there that could mean - if not the end of the whole world - destruction of a large part of it and considerable damage beyond the destruction.

Did you know . . . that between 2000 and 2013, a network of sensors that monitors Earth listening for the signature of nuclear detonations detected 26 explosions on Earth ranging in energy from 1-600 kilotons -- all caused not by nuclear explosions, but by asteroid impacts.

Here is a short video about Asteroid Impacts

Today is the 107th anniversary of the Tunguska Event. An asteroid (or perhaps a small comet) caused 1000 square miles of devastation. It occurred over an area of Siberia so inaccessible that it took over a decade for an expedition to be able to gain access. Even 45 years later fallen trees littered the landscape for miles.

Imagine what something like this would do to a populous area today. Chelyabinsk got a taster two years ago.

The present strategy for dealing with destructive asteroid impacts has been described as "blind luck". But what about a twofold strategy based on discovery and monitoring, and working on ways of deflecting an asteroid on a collision course? (BTW blowing it up only makes it worse!)

But there has to be an awareness of the problem and a will to deal with it. Why not add your name? The 100x Declaration You will be in illustrious company.

Here are the five biggest meteorites ever found on Earth. They range from 20 tonnes to over three times that much.

The sixth largest meteorite found on Earth is the 14.5-tonne Willamette Meteorite, which is on display in the Rose Center of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.

Last month telescopes worldwide were looking at the two Didymos asteroids. They're the target for the Asteroid Impact Mission proposed by the European Space Agency. Not only ESA is involved, for NASA's DART mission is supposed to crash into the smaller asteroid of the pair (nicknamed Didymoon) in 2022. Together the two proposed missions are called AIDA (Asteroid Impact and Deflection Assessment) mission.

On Halloween an asteroid will be flying by Earth, but it couldn't be the end of the world. NASA refers to it as a close encounter - but you have to remember that a close astronomical encounter isn't all that close in ordinary terms. It will be 1.3 lunar distances. Keep in mind that we're not in any danger of being hit by the Moon and this asteroid 2015 TB145 won't come as close to us as the Moon.

But it's slightly worrying that the asteroid was only discovered a week ago. We really do need to take this business more seriously - both continuing to look for asteroids and devise strategies for dealing with one if it is on a collision course. If you haven't yet done it, please sign the Asteroid Day petition.

From the European Space Agency (February 9, 2016) . . .

Asteroid Day is a global movement to increase knowledge and awareness of asteroids. They've announced plans for this year at a presss conference today. Participants included astrophysicist and guitarist Brian May and filmmaker Grigori Richters – who together founded Asteroid Day – as well as astronauts Tom Jones, Dorin Prunariu, Ed Lu, Chris Hadfield, Rakesh Sharma, Soyeon Yi,and Anousheh Ansari.

Also taking part were Nobel Laureate Brian Schmidt; Bill Nye, Planetary Society CEO, Lord Martin Rees, UK Astronomer Royal; Amanda Sickafoose of the South African Astronomical Observatory and Franco Ongaro, ESA’s Director of Technical and Quality Management.

There will be more information about this in later postings.

Today is the third anniversary of the Chelyabinsk meteorite. Here is the fireball recorded by a dashcam from Kamensk-Uralsky north of Chelyabinsk where it was still dawn.

Since light travels faster than sound, the fireball caught people's attention. Some indoors rushed to the window to see what was happening. The meteor exploded and set off a series of sonic booms which broke windows. Fortunately, no one was killed, but a few thousand needed treatment, mostly injuries related to broken glass.

No one saw this asteroid approaching. It could have been much worse. It broke up high in the atmosphere which reduced the damage. We need to detect these objects and develop strategies for dealing with them where we can and protecting ourselves when we can't.