Tuesday, October 7, 2008

We May Survive The Asteroid

Good news from astronomy today!

A meteoroid blew up yesterday in the earth's atmosphere over the Sudan releasing a TNT-kiloton of energy!

Why this is good news:

It was spotted "incoming" about a day earlier by an observer at the Catalina Sky Survey 1.5 meter telescope north of Tucson, Arizona. This was the first time in history that a meteoroid on collision course with the earth was spotted and tracked prior to collision.

The meteoroid itself was at most 15 feet across. This is wonderful news. If we can spot the little ones before they hit, we can spot the big ones.

We won't survive our own greed or gluttony & we'll destroy the planet we have, but we'll probably have plenty of warning before the Mother Of All Asteroids disintegrates us, in time to divert it with the very last of our resources.

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