Rochester Speculative Literature Association - telecscope en Near Earth Objects - Another Near Miss <p>According to BBC&nbsp;News, <a href="" target="_blank">an object somewhere between 20m and 50m passed within 46,000 miles of Earth, today</a>. That's a near miss. The object was reported as being around the same size as the <a href="" target="_blank">object that exploded over Tunguska in 1908</a> (if you don't go for the <a href="" target="_blank">space craft theory</a> or the <a href="" target="_blank">geophysical jet theory</a>). It seems that these stories almost always come after the fact, these days, and probably on purpose to avoid panic at the thought of an impact that could wipe out large cities, regions of continents, and/or a large percentage of life on Earth. So I don't blame &quot;the authorities&quot; for keeping a lid on the news of near misses until after they have occurred and we are all still here.</p> <p>Something that should be considered is pouring more effort into the <a href="" target="_blank" name="NASA's NEO Program">programs established</a> to detect Near Earth Objects. As recently as December, there have been <a href="" target="_blank">calls for this</a>. But is it worth it when (1) the objects we can detect are really friggin' big or too close to do anything about, (2) there is enough error in the detection we have that it the level of certainty of collision is not all that great, and (3) the defensive technologies available probably couldn't do much to prevent one of these big'uns from striking Earth?</p> <p>Detection technology is getting better about the sizes of objects that can be detected and how far away they can be detected, but could conceivably be improved with more investment and research effort. Improving detection is good because there are a lot more smaller objects out there that can still do serious damage and because the farther out we detect an object, the more likely we are to be able to do something about diverting or destroying it.</p> <p>I don't have more right now. Comments, corrections, suggestions, and discussion are welcome.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p><div class="field field-type-text field-field-side-content"> <div class="field-items"> <div class="field-item odd"> <p>Object misses Earth (whew!)</p> </div> </div> </div> asteroid extinction impact NEO telecscope Tunguska Tue, 03 Mar 2009 22:41:01 +0000 eDave 94 at