The Scariest Movie, Ever!

[Ian David]

The Scariest Movie, Ever! (VIDEO - "Babelfish" Required)

NASA’s Asteroid Detection Programs Not Yet Meeting U.S. Goals

August 12 -- According to a new interim report from the National Research Council, NASA’s current near-Earth object surveys will not meet the Congressionally mandated goal of discovering 90 percent of all objects over 140 meters in diameter by 2020. Funding for near-Earth object activities at NASA has been constrained*, with most costs being met by funds from other programs. A final report will include findings and recommendations on detecting, characterizing, and mitigating the hazard of near-Earth objects.

We just watched the scariest movie We've ever seen at The Daily Galaxy. I've linked to it below. It's a Japanese short film -The End of the World- about the results of an asteroid the size of the one that slammed into the Earth 65 million years ago during the Cretaceous Period, suspected to be responsible for the mass extinction of many floral and faunal species, including the large dinosaurs. The film is in Japanese, which makes the film even more terrifying because you realize immedidately that absolutely no translation is needed. It makes the recent Hollywood flicks about asteroids look like Sesame Street productions. What makes the movie so terrifying is that we all know deep in that atavistic reptilian area of our brain that in the future course of human and planetary evolution, that such an event will happen again; as it has millions of times before in our 4.5 billion-year history. I think this knowledge is imprinted into our DNA coding. But can we prevent such a catastrophic event from occuring? The people staffing NASA's NEO (Near Earth Object) Program are planning to see that we do. Until recently, the remains of the 110- to 180-mile Yucatan-Chicxulub impact crater, which is buried by 1,000 to 3,000 feet of limestone, had escaped detection. The geohydrological feature (Cenote Ring) of Northwestern Yucatan, was discovered through NASA Ames Remote Sensing technology.

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/.a/6a00d8341bf7f753ef0120a75f7d5d970b-320wi

More:
http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/2D2Dyp/www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/12/the-scariest-movie-ever-babelfish-required.html/r:t

*Gee, thanks again, Bush!

[semillama]

1. Space exploration by humans is a moot point

if we can't detect an earthkiller asteroid in time to do something about it. I would think it would be pretty obvious.

[theoldman]

2. Now that is what I call global warming.