Astronauts to reveal sobering data on asteroid impacts

PhysOrg ^ | April 17, 2014 | Jason Major

[upchuck]

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."

[Bryanw92]

>>If we get hit by 3x to 10x the space debris we thought, then wouldn’t we also have 3x to 10x the large scale impacts?

True. How many large-scale impacts have we actually seen in the last 20 years? I’m talking ones that would have done major destruction to a city if it had hit one?

10 x 0 = ???

[TomGuy]

Just put up a big sign: Asteriod Free Zone.

Problem solved.

[Spok]

This will remain a non issue until the left wing press figures out how to blame asteroids on global warming, the Republicans, the NRA or capitalism. Today, the news isn’t just ‘spun’; events are simply the means to support political propaganda. The ‘spin’ has become the news.

[Fresh Wind]

So that’s what happened to Detroit. It wasn’t democRat rule after all.

[taildragger]

Burt Rutan has stated, nevermind Global Warming, where is a Space response ( i.e rockets w/ warheads(?) ) to this threat which as he noted a greater threat than the canard of man made global warming ( Oh that was not an intended pun, but canard / Rutan LOL!, a joke only airplane nerds would get )...

[JimRed]

The past decade? And nobody noticed these impacts?

I think a larger span of time was meant but not properly stated.

[Norm Lenhart]

Well they (city killer+ size) havent hit anywhere on land because that would result in a nuclear winter style scenario and they have not hit in water because that would result in monster tsunamis.

So where did they hit? Did they bullseye Krakatoa and no one Noticed?

[Sherman Logan]

To determine the likelihood of that happening, you’d first have to determine what percentage of the world’s surface is urban.

One number I’ve seen is 3%. Don’t know the definition they used.

It means any asteroid that hits the earth has a 1 in 33 chance of hitting a city.

[BigBobber]

This is a real threat as compared to the phony threat of global warming

I think it means the statists see the writing on the wall for global warming. Time to crank up another world-ending catastrophe. Another one that only the elitists can save us from, and only if we turn over to them all our money and liberty.

They are smarter this time and they will make the supposed catastrophe so nebulous and so far in the future that their "science" can never be disproved. The end will always be just around the corner if we don't submit.

[JimRed]

...when was the last time in human history that an asteroid wiped out a city on earth?

Sodom and Gomorrah?

[Ramius]

Seems to me that it logically follows that asteroids should get smaller and smaller over time. The larger they are the more gravitational pull they have and the more likely it becomes that they’ve already fallen into the sun or been collected already by a planet or moon. There aren’t any more being made out there, so the mean size should be falling all the time.

[logi_cal869]

Seriously, for all the alarmist blather, when was the last time in human history that an asteroid wiped out a city on earth?

Well, depending on 'open minds'...

Sodom & Gomorrah

http://blogs.christianpost.com/comets-of-god/was-sodom-and-gomorrah-wiped-out-by-a-comet-9091/

http://realitybong.wordpress.com/2010/03/07/sodom-and-gomorrah-the-kofels-asteroid-impact/

I guess 'Dodom & Comorrah', et al, must be either lucky or something, huh? /s

[Bryanw92]

>>So where did they hit? Did they bullseye Krakatoa and no one Noticed?

The people that are using this to waste grant money said decades. In the last century, I can only significant impact that I can think of is Tunguska, and that more than a century ago.

[Norm Lenhart]

Never ceases to amaze me how gullible people can be. And how willing to waste money. Sure it can happen, but to lie at the level they are about it is obscene.

[mj81]

Try out the slide presentation here: http://www.threeimpacts-twoevents.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Geologic-Sensemaking-Simultaneous-Impacts-10May2013.pdf

[Ghost of SVR4]

I’ve wondered for a while if “rogue waves” (those giant suckers in the middle of the ocean) might have been produced by large impacts...

[SoCal Pubbie]

The article showed a photo of the recent meteor falling in Russia, which never hit the surface, so I’m thinking these strikes they’re referencing were all atmosphere impacts.

[Sherman Logan]

To produce a city-killer impact, say 20KT like the Hiroshima bomb, takes impact by a stony asteroid about 8 meters.

Unfortunately, an asteroid of that size usually fragments and vaporizes in upper atmo, producing something around 5 KT, with zero blast damage at ground level. Buildings and people might be destroyed by fragments.

Here is a truly cool calculator you can use to play around with what happens when an object impacts.

http://impact.ese.ic.ac.uk/ImpactEffects/

Big ones do unbelievable damage. But then big ones don’t come along very often, even on a geological time scale.

[tom paine 2]

The moon has been a significant deterrent to asteroids.

[Bryanw92]

>>The article showed a photo of the recent meteor falling in Russia, which never hit the surface, so I’m thinking these strikes they’re referencing were all atmosphere impacts.

I agree. And I think that this is the kind of stuff that makes scientists seem more like carnival barkers than legitimate scientists.