The Lemon Fool

Apophis asteroid will not hit Earth for 100 years, Nasa says

BBC News

Earthlings can breathe a sigh of relief after US space agency Nasa confirmed the planet was "safe" from a once-feared asteroid for the next 100 years at least.

"Nasa had deemed Apophis to be one of the most dangerous asteroids to Earth after its discovery in 2004."

In 100 years humanity should hopefully have enough technology in space to deflect or destroy Apophis. Or maybe a 22nd century version of Bruce Willis in "Armageddon"

In case anyone is interested, the asteroid strictly speaking isn't named after the Egyptian god Apophis. Its discoverers named it Apophis after the major villain of the first four series of "Stargate SG-1", who wants to destroy civilization on Earth. In SG-1 this Apophis became the Ancient Egyptian God Apophis!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/99942_Apophis

An interesting thought experiment. What if NASA and other respected institutions said that body X would produce an extinction event impact in 100 years time. How would our various governments respond? Would they join together to produce a hugely costly but immediate response or would they ignore it for now in the expectation / hope that a cheaper (to them, if not everyone) solution would be possible in the future? Or simply that they would be dead by then and it becomes someone else's problem?

Hard to think that any current government would take the lead in averting an entirely predictable calamity that didn't affect their chances of relection / holding on to democratic mandate or totalitarianism rule.

Allitnil wrote:An interesting thought experiment. What if NASA and other respected institutions said that body X would produce an extinction event impact in 100 years time. How would our various governments respond? Would they join together to produce a hugely costly but immediate response or would they ignore it for now in the expectation / hope that a cheaper (to them, if not everyone) solution would be possible in the future? Or simply that they would be dead by then and it becomes someone else's problem?

Hard to think that any current government would take the lead in averting an entirely predictable calamity that didn't affect their chances of relection / holding on to democratic mandate or totalitarianism rule.

You are overly pessimistic.

NASA is a government body. Looking and warning is taking the lead in averting a possible calamity. As are things like DART. The first fifty years of program to avoid the hypothetical extinction event would probably consist of research and be mostly indistinguishable from the current program.

Demographic government's on the whole tend to reflect their electorate, a substantial portion of whom would not believe it, think it's the Chinese/US' fault, expect someone else to take care of it for them, etc, etc.

SalvorHardin wrote:In 100 years humanity should hopefully have enough technology in space to deflect or destroy Apophis.

My guess is that insurance premiums for orbiting technology will go up, but otherwise no action until the last minute. Then there will be competing "saviour" missions from the usual suspects, and a "world beating" project launched from closer to home.

XFool wrote:Massive asteroid to pass by Earth on weekend

BBC News

An asteroid large enough to destroy a city will pass between the orbits of the Earth and the Moon this weekend - luckily for us, missing both.

https://www.virtualtelescope.eu/2023/03/18/near-earth-asteroid-2023-dz2-very-close-encounter-online-observation-25-mar-2023/

It's going to miss us, sure. But it seems we didn't notice it until 5 minutes ago.

Scott.

XFool wrote:Massive asteroid to pass by Earth on weekend
[i]An asteroid large enough to destroy a city ..

OK if it fell on Slough

V8
wasn't going to add the smiley then thought someone unfamiliar with the reference was bound to complain

88V8 wrote:

XFool wrote:Massive asteroid to pass by Earth on weekend
[i]An asteroid large enough to destroy a city ..

OK if it fell on Slough

V8
wasn't going to add the smiley then thought someone unfamiliar with the reference was bound to complain

Here is the News: Today, Billions of pounds of Improvements were carried out when an asteroid fell on slough/Dundee/Port Talbot/insert dump of your choice.

I blame the Yeti's

https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articl ... m-the-sun/