NASA, FEMA Hold Asteroid Emergency Planning Exercise

[Megalith]

Contrary to popular belief, an asteroid that hits the Earth may not necessarily be an extinction-level event, so things aren’t as simple as blowing all your retirement savings and just sitting on the beach. The parties who would be responsible for cleaning up such a giant mess are trying to figure out just how they would evacuate everyone and prevent hysteria.

The exercise simulated a possible impact four years from now -- a fictitious asteroid imagined to have been discovered this fall with a 2 percent probability of impact with Earth on Sept. 20, 2020. The simulated asteroid was initially estimated to be between 300 and 800 feet (100 and 250 meters) in size, with a possibility of making impact anywhere along a long swath of Earth, including a narrow band of area that crossed the entire United States. In the fictitious scenario, observers continued to track the asteroid for three months using ground-based telescope observations, and the probability of impact climbed to 65 percent. Then the next observations had to wait until four months later, due to the asteroid's position relative to the sun. Once observations could resume in May of 2017, the impact probability jumped to 100 percent. By November of 2017, it was simulated that the predicted impact would occur somewhere in a narrow band across Southern California or just off the coast in the Pacific Ocean.

 

[BloodyIron]

How neat is that?

 

[MongGrel]

If it was the one I saw mentioned the other day, it won't be within 300,000 miles, and that isn't a huge one to begin with.

But there is a lot of tracking has been ramped up these days.

 

[westrock2000]

A month ago a smallish meteor (several feet) landed right off the coast of Australia.

Humans are going to have to accept their fate at some point. The only sensible solution is to make sure we don't have all our eggs in one basket.

Look at Chelyabinsk (2013). That was about 60 feet and no one seem to have seen that one coming. The most dangerous meteor to be documented yet, and not 1 person saw it coming.

I believe it was Isaac Asimov (but could have been Carl Sagan) who said the human civilization may very well self terminate someday all because a rock traveled through space and just happen to land in a densely populated city.

 

[thesmokingman]

It's like I've seen this movie before?

 

[Goldheart]

Contrary to popular belief, an asteroid that hits the Earth may not necessarily be an extinction-level event, so things aren’t as simple as blowing all your retirement savings and just sitting on the beach. The parties who would be responsible for cleaning up such a giant mess are trying to figure out just how they would evacuate everyone and prevent hysteria.

The exercise simulated a possible impact four years from now -- a fictitious asteroid imagined to have been discovered this fall with a 2 percent probability of impact with Earth on Sept. 20, 2020. The simulated asteroid was initially estimated to be between 300 and 800 feet (100 and 250 meters) in size, with a possibility of making impact anywhere along a long swath of Earth, including a narrow band of area that crossed the entire United States. In the fictitious scenario, observers continued to track the asteroid for three months using ground-based telescope observations, and the probability of impact climbed to 65 percent. Then the next observations had to wait until four months later, due to the asteroid's position relative to the sun. Once observations could resume in May of 2017, the impact probability jumped to 100 percent. By November of 2017, it was simulated that the predicted impact would occur somewhere in a narrow band across Southern California or just off the coast in the Pacific Ocean.

This probably should be done for every major city. If not for asteroids, then NBC attacks. Between terrorists, Russia, and China, it's likely inevitable at some point.

I also believe we should reinvest in bomb/fallout shelters as we did back in the cold war. Call them survival centers or something. They could be useful for environmental catastrophe as well - earthquakes, tornadoes, etc.

 

[Krenum]

 

[Ruoh]

Waiting for the nay sayers to come in and state its a hoax, a waste of money to watch the sky.

 

[bigthoughts]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1527186/

 

[drakken]

so as a meteorite travels through space the extreme cold of space literately rips off the other facing and it because of momentum is trailed behind. When they impact on upper layers of atmosphere they are hitting grind wheel at extreme speeds and deflect slightly depending on Euclidean physics and angle of incidence perpendicular to the moving molecules. Usually what you see is shower of rocks falling at terminal vee after being ripped apart by re-entry. think of crushed ice. the bigger ones are usually pieces of the meteorite that bounced back up and falls back at a different angle. Most comets enter at angle where they would hit and bounce back away from the earth. Just try throwing a smooth pebble at a normal machine grinder and you will see it get spun off the grind wheel with much more force than you threw it at the wheel. Usually hard enough when it hits a concrete floor it cracks.