The biggest threat to humanity, far bigger than global warming/climate change, is about to get bigger, much bigger
A press release from some former NASA astronauts on the current asteroid impact threat to earth, based on data on in-atmosphere detonations since 2001, gleaned from a nuclear weapon detonation detection system has yielded some startling numbers.
The threat is 3 to 10 times higher than previously predicted. The data will be presented at the Seattle Flight Museum, Tuesday April 22, at 6:00pm PDT.
Just last night, another fireball was seen over Russia, caught on a dashcamera. See video.
Now it becomes apparent why this press release is important.
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.”
In partnership with Ball Aerospace, the B612 Foundation will build, launch, and operate an infrared space telescope to find and track the hundreds of thousands of threatening asteroids that cannot be tracked with current telescopes. See the mission pager here
Read the press release at:http://b612foundation.org/news/b612-press-conference-on-protecting-earth-from-asteroid-impacts/
h/t to reader “Mac the Knife”.
Asteroid impacts and solar-flares fit nicely to a Pareto Distribution, along with the Big Bang (as an extreme) and the Carrington Event.
This Pareto Distribution is populated by Black Swans for those advocating robust infrastructure systems.
Alan Robertson says: April 19, 2014 at 3:27 pm “…allowing us to easily deflect them. ________________ Sure.”
Oh, well said, on many levels! The Jewish are being told to flee the Ukraine. George Santayana was a seer.
How come these things mostly seem to hit Russia?
As someone pointed out this is unlikely to get a lot of traction from the Global scare industry because the focus is so narrow it can’t be milked by too many hanger-on parasites. A large amount of the money would have to be used for actual physical material. Not nearly as profitable as intellectual constructs.
On the other hand. I support the idea of instigating a large scale program to build the resources needed to detect and possibly deflect such perils. The reason is that the spin-off befits would be enormous.
We are talking actual engineering, which almost has to result in real-world applications.
agfosterjr says:
April 19, 2014 at 5:36 pm
Not necessarily. No matter how any heads you toss, chances of next tossing tails remain 1/2. Asteroid collisions would first need to be shown to be of non-random frequency to make such a claim, and your 35mya collision goes against the usual 100my or so frequency claim. –AGF
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I’ve read that impacts are more likely as the Sun passes thru the galactic plane about every 35 million years. Passing thru the plane (densest part of our galaxy) perturbs objects in the Ort Cloud as possibly the K belt too. Some of these perturbed objects make it to Earth. Hence an apparent lose link to a 35 million year period for big impacts.
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http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=402
“The period of oscillation in and out of the plane of the galaxy (up and down) is about 70 million years. This means that we pass through the Galactic midplane about every 35 million years which some people have compared with the period between mass extinctions on Earth to come up with yet another doomsday theory.”
Probably the best sci-fi treatment of this subject is Lucifer’s Hammer by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, available on Kindle.
The book deals extensively with both the pre and post event fun in a scientifically accurate way (mostly). In their case a comet is detected on a near miss trajectory. However, it comes out from behind the sun breaking up and the rain of fragments makes a really bad day for everyone. Widespread forrest fires, tsunamis, etc. The second half deals with the following years of very cold weather and how the survivors self-organize after the end of civilization as we know it.
A great read.
peter says:
April 20, 2014 at 6:51 am
On the other hand. I support the idea of instigating a large scale program to build the resources needed to detect and possibly deflect such perils. The reason is that the spin-off befits would be enormous.
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It’s all good ’til Ernst Stavro Blofeld gets his hands on it.
Throwing taxpayers’ cash at something with the belief that the payback will exceed the cost is naive at best. That’s not how investment works.
Who will pay for the unintended consequences of a failed deflection?
Wouldn’t one expect the number asteroid impact threats to have decreased over geological timescales?
Don’t the objects get used up while new objects are not being created?
One less thing to worry about => the risk is self-eliminating.
John
That’s not news to those in the business of watching space. DSP has been seeing that kind of activity almost since it was implemented. And I do recall a news item from the 1970s that involved a civilian cargo aircraft flying between Tokyo and Anchorage. Somewhere out over the north Pacific Ocean they watched a mushroom cloud rise from the sea surface. Being unsure as to what it was, they circumnavigated it. Radiation test done after landing at Anchorage revealed NO radiological contamination.
@Jimbo
If it hits Washington it might very well save us all! 🙂
I can build a computer model to study the probably of asteroid strikes and the extent of the damage. It will settle the science. Please send money.
The spin off technology from implementing a program for protecting ourselves from killer asteroids would benefit mankind in more ways than one. A mission sent to these things would not only involve diverting the trajectory of asteroids from a collision from Earth but also would supply the means for setting up facilities on high valued targets for resources extraction. Gaining control of asteroids is the natural next step for mankind if we are to safely develop the solar system and raise our chances for survival.beyond the confines of the Earth.
Once a asteroid protection system is in place it would render nuclear war obsolete as it would involve orbital based high powered lasers that could also vaporize missiles before they could hit there targets. In saying this It is very important that this be a joint project between all governments of the world to avoid a global totalitarian dictatorship as a private entity would surely use this as a super weapon to force its rivals to submit to their power. I am expecting astroid defence to become more of a issue as NATO and its allies continues to squeeze Russia and China into confrontation as total nuclear annihilation is not a option for all sides. A private entity must not be at the controls of a asteroid defence system or we will be guaranteeing ourselves slavery into the space age.
“In saying this It is very important that this be a joint project between all governments of the world to avoid a global totalitarian dictatorship as a private entity would surely use this as a super weapon to force its rivals to submit to their power.”
Yeah, like the UN is doing a great job keeping Russia out of Crimea.
And the U.S. has to get rides into space from the Russians.
BWTM . . . Man Made Global Warming is a product of this joint project between all governments.
Well if one is going to hit and folks are going to die..I vote for DC to be first.
Bill Ills says
“The question becomes what do we do about the large asteroids that we find. If it is 3 kms wide, do we just take the impact. Easier than 50 smaller impacts causing wide-spread devastation. We have to make sure all the parts miss the Earth. If it is 10 km wide, we better try to stop it. Only people living in mines for 5 years would survive this size. But we don’t want to turn a 10 km impact into 10000 smaller impacts. We still don’t know what the best solution is.”
You seem to assume that deflecting an asteroid must be a violent affair. This is not true if the collision is foreseen early enough. Then a gravity-tug mission is practicable which will not cause even the most fragile asteroid to break up0.
tty says: April 20, 2014 at 12:48 pm “You seem to assume that deflecting an asteroid must be a violent affair. This is not true if the collision is foreseen early enough. Then a gravity-tug mission is practicable which will not cause even the most fragile asteroid to break up0.”
Modus ponens much? Affirming the antecedent of early-enough. The technologic infrastructure to deflect a visible mass, let alone “gently” and accurately and remotely is not even practicably forseen.
Compare and contrast the deflection of ISS-1 Blackhole in its failing orbit, or of the infinitely more valuable HST.
John Whitman says:
“Wouldn’t one expect the number asteroid impact threats to have decreased over geological timescales?
Don’t the objects get used up while new objects are not being created?
One less thing to worry about => the risk is self-eliminating.”
It’s not that simple. Impact rates were very high early in the history of the solar system, but since the end of “the Late Heavy Bombardment” 3 900 million years ago impact rates seem to have been fairly constant.
Generally speaking planets will ultimately “sweep up” objects that intersects their orbit. However the population of orbit-crossing objects is occasionally replenished by collisions between objects in the asteroid belt. For example we know that such an event – the breakup of the so called L-chondrite body happened about 470 million years ago, followed by huge wave of meteor impacts of every size on Earth.
The last major generally recognized “impact swarm” happened near the Eocene/Oligocene border c. 35 million years ago when at least 4 major impacts occurred over a geologically brief interval (Chesapeake Bay, Popigai, Wanapitei and Mistastin).
Similarly the population of comets is thought to be replenished at irregular interval by stars that pass relatively close to the solar system and perturb objects in the Oort cloud into orbits that take them into the solar system.
It should be noted that we only know a very small proportion of even large impacts that have occurred. New craters – even large ones – are constantly being found on the c. 20 % of the Earth’s surface that is accessible.
The major part of the Earth’s surface – the ocean bottoms – is constantly renewed, and is nowhere older than 200 million years, so the vast majority of all impact scars are long gone..
bom says:
April 20, 2014 at 8:24 am
The devastating Chesapeake Bay impact, which sent a megatsunami washing over Camp David, was off by just 35 million years.
Well, we have experienced the Tunguska event over Siberia only 100 years ago. Certainly “earth-shattering” had it been only a two kilometers closer!
Then Jupiter got hit by the 26 comet remnants only 20 years ago.
The moon gained a visibility-striking new crater only last year. City and state-sized blast zone.
And now the last few.
Yes. A city-sized impact IS likely.
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SO, how to deflect a medium asteroid/comet?
The “community” has a complete absolute “you can’t use a nuclear weapon” attitude based on their prejudices, but persistently claim that mythological wands like an ion engine (that does not exist) or a solar-screen “sail” or a “gravity attractor” would work. Somehow.
Yet, none can criticize the simple fact that a close-burst nuclear weapon (or one bursting on the surface (not drilled underneath the surface as in the recent movies) would break apart the comet or asteroid, and what pieces remain would have a slightly different trajectory. Those pieces still impacting would be smaller, and more would break up higher in the atmosphere.
A “best solution”? No.
But better than magic wands fueled by unobtanium and fastened to a rapidly spinning huge mass by miraculenium to create forces on a spinning mass in space at distances further than Mars? Yes.
If an asteroid HAS to hit a city, please let it be Chicago. Be sure to warn me first….
Seriously, I think the devastation caused by a massive solar flare & CME event would be far greater and longer lasting than a single asteroid, unless it was a huge honkin’ one. I believe the likelihood of a solar flare/CME is very strong, considering the quiet sun we’ve enjoyed.
Also, an asteroid would kick up a huge amount of dust, causing global cooling, so we’ll be happy to have all that GHG in the atmosphere under that scenario.
RACookPE1978 says:
April 20, 2014 at 1:54 pm
Yes. A city-sized impact IS likely.
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SO, how to deflect a medium asteroid/comet?
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No city has had a significant impact in thousands of years. “A city-sized impact IS likely.” Yes, some time in the next 10,000 years. We need do nothing, as the odds are remote.
Hmmm, what cities have been destroyed over the eons by these 26 multi-kiloton nuclear sized explosions? None I believe. Luckily, big cities represent a less than 1% area of the earths surface. But the prospect of a lethal sized asteroid is a possibility, and the funds spent on “climate disruption” would better be spent on “rocket technology” able to divert the trajectory of these killer sized rocks…
Doug Huffman says:
April 20, 2014 at 6:04 am
“Oh, well said, on many levels!”
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You do realize that you are not hiding under a basket (bushel)…
“Athelstan. says:
April 19, 2014 at 5:23 pm
The catastrophe that will wipe out humanity is unlikely to be man made – naturally.”
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Yes, you are correct, it will be man made; it will for sure beyond any doubt be a result of robots that we build. In no less than maybe one or two hundred years our future robots will exterminate mankind just like in the movies except this will be reality not just special effects.
It all comes down to survival of the fittest, that is the way natural selection has worked in the past, continues to this day and forever into the future. The good news is that these machines will survive any large-scale asteroid impact regardless of what such impact might do to the world’s climate, yes survival of the fittest for sure and as Athelstan mentioned, “naturally”.