"the only thing preventing a catastrophe from a 'city-killer' sized asteroid is blind luck."

[n2doc]

This Earth Day, Tuesday, April 22, three former NASA astronauts will present new evidence that our planet has experienced many more large-scale asteroid impacts over the past decade than previously thought… three to ten times more, in fact. A new visualization of data from a nuclear weapons warning network, to be unveiled by B612 Foundation CEO Ed Lu during the evening event at Seattle's Museum of Flight, shows that "the only thing preventing a catastrophe from a 'city-killer' sized asteroid is blind luck."

Since 2001, 26 atomic-bomb-scale explosions have occurred in remote locations around the world, far from populated areas, made evident by a nuclear weapons test warning network. In a recent press release B612 Foundation CEO Ed Lu states:

"This network has detected 26 multi-kiloton explosions since 2001, all of which are due to asteroid impacts. It shows that asteroid impacts are NOT rare—but actually 3-10 times more common than we previously thought. The fact that none of these asteroid impacts shown in the video was detected in advance is proof that the only thing preventing a catastrophe from a 'city-killer' sized asteroid is blind luck. The goal of the B612 Sentinel mission is to find and track asteroids decades before they hit Earth, allowing us to easily deflect them."

The B612 Foundation is partnered with Ball Aerospace to build the Sentinel Infrared Space Telescope Mission. Once positioned in solar orbit closer to the Sun from Earth, Sentinel will look outwards in infrared to detect hundreds of thousands of as-yet unknown near-Earth objects over 140 meters in size. The privately-funded spacecraft is slated to launch in 2017-18 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

more

http://phys.org/news/2014-04-astronauts-reveal-sobering-asteroid-impacts.html

[lordsummerisle]

1. Detection is great

But mitigation is a whole different matter on which books have been written. To start with, who finances it?

[Flying Squirrel]

5. I got to attend the presentation...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/122828842

Basically, all that's needed to deflect one is to crash something into it with enough force to change its trajectory a small amount, long enough in advance to miss the Earth by about 4 minutes (say, 10 years in advance of the expected collision.) They are presuming that if they can demonstrate clearly that the object is going to hit a certain area (which they can do to within a few km), this will motivate governments near the projected impact area to come up with the money to prevent that impact.

[lordsummerisle]

10. That's great

For the ones predicted to hit years ahead. while we're waiting though we could be blindsided at any time. Also at this time nothing could be done about a long-period comet discovered to hit us several months out...

[Flying Squirrel]

11. Yep

True enough.. but it's kinda like winning the lottery (although in the case of the planet, we'd lose) - sure, you could buy one ticket and win tomorrow, but the odds are that the longer you play, the better chance you have of winning - or in the case of the planet, losing.

And then there's the old saying, that if something can happen, no matter how small the probability, then it will eventually happen - given enough time.

I like to be optimistic.. it's the same deal with earthquake preparedness, the "big one" could hit while you're still in the early stages of retrofitting buildings and overpasses etc., but it probably won't. And since there's nothing you can really do to change the timing, (apart from maybe banning fracking, but that's a whole different subject), there's no point worrying about it in the mean time. If it happens, it happens.

In reality, it just might turn out that meteor strikes are something we have more control over than earthquakes! Now that's an exciting possibility.

[longship]

2. Phil Plait's TEDx Talk on this.

(14:00)

Pretty good.

[longship]

3. Between 37,000 and 78,000 tons of asteroids fall to Earth each year.

That's about 100-200 tons per day.

That's just typical. It does not include the occasional outlier continent crusher asteroids.

Sleep well.

[Flying Squirrel]

6. I'm definitely gonna sleep a little bit better after 2018

Which is when they'll be launching an infrared telescope capable of detecting around 200,000 larger asteroids in our solar system per year which may be on a collision course.

See this thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/122828842

for more info

[defacto7]

4. Keep an eye out for asteroid warnings!

If you hear of one coming, be sure to stay INDOORS!

And always remember.... Duck and Cover!

Seriously, it's time the powers, whoever they are, pay heed and a portion of GDP to watch for and deflect detectable asteroids. Even so there will always be a statistical unknown in the calculation; it's a crap shoot. The one that will get us is the one that slingshots unnoticed from around the Sun. But there's no reason we shouldn't seriously try to lower the odds a bit.

[Flying Squirrel]

7. Yep..

And the organization at that link is going to be doing exactly that

http://www.democraticunderground.com/122828842

[defacto7]

8. It's good to hear.

It's unfortunate that it's privately funded as that can create it's own atmosphere of political trauma but if the governments of the planet can't face the facts and pull it together then so be it. I hope the project stays firmly directed toward the goal. The goal itself will be monumental, keeping the interest and devotion of the financial supporters will be even more monumental as time ticks by and the toys of the wealthy become boring. Such is the dilemma of private projects and the competition between all its constituents. It would never become out-of-interest to me, but I can't financially support such a project although I wish I could.

[dipsydoodle]

9. Asteroid impact risks 'underappreciated'

A visualisation showing where sizeable asteroids have hit the Earth in recent years has been released by the B612 Foundation.

The US-based group, which includes a number of former Nasa astronauts, campaigns on the issue of space protection.

It hopes the visualisation will press home the idea that impacts are more common than we think.

The presentation leans on data collected by the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-27039285