And if an asteroid of any size were on a collision course with the Earth, exactly what would/could we do to prevent it?
Answer: Not a d@mn thing. (Although Democrats would try to fund raise off the event.)
Answer: Not a d@mn thing. (Although Democrats would try to fund raise off the event.)
I'm not even sure it should be something made public. The mass panic and pandemonium would be like no riot we could ever imagine.
Actually, we presently have, or could have in short order, the technology to divert asteroids and comets. It's really not that difficult. The key is to intercept the object far out, so only a little bit of divergence is needed to cause it to miss. The closer the intercept the more delta vee is needed.
The chance of being hit is proportional to the size of the object, with many more small than big ones out there.
http://www.risk-ed.org/pages/risk/asteroid_prob.htm
An asteroid about 1 to 2 km is size supposedly hit China in 1490, with around 10,000 deaths. Today, of course, the death toll would be much higher if it hit the same place, due to larger population. The chance of an asteroid of this size hitting somewhere on earth is about 1 in 1000 years. The chance of it hitting a heavily populated area is of course much lower.
However, this does NOT mean that it will be 1000 years, rather it means there is a 1 in 1000 chance it will hit this year. We're already 500 years out from the last one. That we know of.
The capability to detect and divert these objects would require a much more robust space presence, which arguably has manifold other benefits.
One of the liberal enviro memes if the Gaia hypothesis, that the Earth is itself a living organism that creates the conditions for life. And there is certainly something to the notion.
In the eyes of deep enviros, this makes Man, or at least American white straight Man, a disease that must be destroyed.
I've boggled a number of these types by suggesting that modern man is Gaia's way of building itself an asteroid defense system. Simply can't wrap their minds around the idea.