Mar 03 2009
It Came Real Close
I just finished listening to George Noory bring up this asteroid. Apparently an asteroid whizzed by our planet today, missing us by only 40,000 to 72,000 kilometers. It amazes me how often we come close to big rocks like this one. Sometimes I wonder about the odds, and just how “lucky” we often are. According to newscientist.com the asteroid passed by at only 1/5 the distance to the moon and was estimated to be nearly 20 - 50 meters across. However I guess there are some variations on the size. Playing the video gives me chills. It’s pretty hard to notice by just looking at it, but if you focus, you will see a dot moving across your screen from right to left. This is the asteroid. Now what I want to know is this…Do you think we should allocate more resources towards detecting these kinds of asteroids and developing systems to protect ourselves from them? Do you think NASA should be doing more to attempt to protect us? What are your thoughts on this?
Check out newscientist.com for the full article.
I definitely agree with you. I think asteroids are a big threat to EVERYONE on Earth today. I think NASA does need to put more effort into protecting us and come up with more ideas on what to do in case we are not so lucky next time. I think it’s only a matter of time before a large asteroid collides with Earth. Better to have a plan than be taken by surprise and then have half the world dead or more! We could potentially be annihalated by a large enough asteroid, talk about the end of the world, this could really happen and that’s what’s so scary! I hope they come up with more plans just in case it ever happens to us, better to be safe than sorry(or dead).