Oh, joy. I hope it doesn’t take an actual catastrophe before the world comes together to get all of our eggs out of this one basket.
Comet P/2016 BA14 was initially thought to be a cosmic lightweight, but as it flew past Earth on March 22, NASA pinged it with radar to reveal just what a heavyweight it really is.
An article for the “Dooms Day” fans.
An asteroid roughly 100 feet long and moving at more than 34,000 mph is scheduled to make a close pass by Earth in two weeks.
But don’t worry, scientists say. It has no chance of hitting us, and may instead help draw public attention to growing efforts at tracking the thousands of asteroids zooming around space that could one day wipe out a city — or worse — if they ever hit our planet.
Sooner or later it IS going to happen. All we can do is prepare to defend out planet, whilst making sure we have humans living off-world, somewhere, so that all of our proverbial eggs aren’t in one proverbial basket!
But don’t worry, it won’t hit us.
There’s little data on asteroid 2013 TX68, leaving doomsayers predicting a cataclysmic collision. But the space agency is far less concerned.
NASA’s new Planetary Defense Coordination Office is charged with supervising efforts to plan for potential asteroid threats to Earth.
Blinded by the light of a falling meteor, David has a devastating car accident, leading to a profound discovery: an extra-terrestrial organism that may contain the secret of life itself. When David goes missing for two days, Annabelle searches for her father only to discover him wandering the forest, without so much as a scratch. David’s mysterious reappearance draws the attention of federal authorities and gives Annabelle reason to doubt his sanity. But David has a new sense of purpose, fueled by nightmarish visions. Driven by what he believes is an otherworldly purpose, David must convince Annabelle to believe him and complete his task before government agents can stop him, and before the world destroys itself.
Can there be any doubt any more that colonizing, at minimum, the rest of the solar system is an existential species imperative!?
Most studies of potential Earth-smashers focus on objects in the asteroid belt roughly between Mars, Earth’s outside neighbour, and Jupiter on its other flank, said the researchers.
But they noted that the discovery in the last two decades of hundreds of giant comets dubbed centaurs, albeit with much larger orbits, requires expanding the list of potential hazards.
Continue reading “Giant comets may threaten Earth: astronomers” »
Equal parts interesting and disturbing.
Mass extinctions occurring over the past 260 million years were likely caused by comet and asteroid showers, a new study concludes. An artist’s illustration of a major asteroid impact on Earth. (credit: NASA/Don Davis)
Mass extinctions occurring over the past 260 million years were likely caused by comet and asteroid showers, scientists conclude in a new study published in an open-access paper in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Continue reading “Mass extinctions linked to comet and asteroid showers” »
Citizens of the Thai capital Bangkok witnessed a huge fireball descending on the horizon this morning, and thanks to the dashcams in their cars, we can admire the celestial visitor from several different angles.
The meteor entered Earth’s atmosphere around 8.45am local time, and burnt up in a huge fireball after striking down from the sky. The meteor was big and bright, but definitely smaller than the infamous Chelyabinsk meteor which exploded over Russia in 2013, damaging 7,200 buildings in six cities in the southern Ural region. There are no reports of any damage from Bangkok so far.
We put together a short video about the Bangkok shooting star, for you viewing pleasure:
“EXCLUSIVE: Could this asteroid destroy Earth in just SIX weeks?” According to NASA, the answer is “absolutely not, you imbeciles.”
NASA issued an official statement about the conspiracy-web theory that an asteroid is heading for the Atlantic with an impact on September 23rd. “That’s the rumor that has gone viral–now here are the facts,” the agency writes. “There is no scientific basis–not one shred of evidence–that an asteroid or any other celestial object will impact Earth on those dates,” says the manager of NASA’s Near-Earth Object office, Paul Chodas.
Who could be perpetrating such rumors? The theory has actually been around for years, but it’s picked up steam over the past month or two. Unsurprisingly, a major role has been played by InfoWars, which has built a business out of circulating conspiracy theories about the government, impending apocalypse, and the shadowy machinations of world powers. “We are simply taking a look at what has being said,” says InfoWars’ John Bowne in a video about the forthcoming asteroid strike. Just a simple look! So what’s being said?
