NASA Scientist Warns Earth Is 'Totally Unprepared' for an Asteroid Hit

[yuiyoshida]

oh joy...one more thing to worry about

[shadowrider]

1. How, exactly

should we prepare for an event of this magnitude? Build bomb shelters? An asteroid 3 miles wide would wipe out life as we know it (except for cockroaches, them suckers can live through anything).

Evolution and extinction occur. Humans are just another species on an earth that simply doesn't care what lives here.

Dinosaurs were around for hundreds of millions of years, and went away. One day, humans will too. Then, in several hundred million years after the event, something will crawl out of the water and it starts all over again.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

2. I think the idea is to...

... have a better early monitoring system to give us time to deflect such objects in various ways.

I'm not too worried about asteroid/comet strikes, though. The devastating collisions are rare.

Nuclear weapons are still at the top, followed by coronal mass ejections from the Sun (very large ones hit Earth every few HUNDRED years, and they can wipe out our electrical grids) and finally... global warming.

EDIT: I've never actually made a list before! Plagues and other disasters would fit in there too.

[paleotn]

4. Indeed, slim chance...

but the consequences would be catastrophic for most species on the planet. CMEs and novel viruses worry the crap out of me.

[paleotn]

5. The technology exists currently.

..All it takes is a relative nudge to change the orbit of even a slate wiping object and keep it from hitting earth. It just takes the will to do it. On this subject, NASA launched a really interesting probe back in Sept. Amazing what NASA can do on what amounts to a shoe string budget.

https://www.nasa.gov/osiris-rex

[longship]

6. The idea is this...

"The main difference between the dinosaurs and us is that the dinosaurs did not have a space program."

I recommend Phil Plait, the Bad Astronomer. He has been beating this same drum for many years.

Death from the Skies

[man on the moonshine]

3. Only 41 Days Left

[impeachtrumpquick]

7. It hits in 19 days