Whose job is it to stop an asteroid from hitting Earth?
Not to be overly alarmist, but Earth has had two near-misses with large asteroids so far this month. On Wednesday, a hunk of space rock three miles in diameter and going by the designation 4179 Toutatis passed by the planet, missing by 4.3 million miles, or about 18 times the distance from the Earth to the moon. …
The United Nations Scientific and Technical Subcommittee has a special working group on NEOs advised by a special coalition of experts (called Action Team 14), ranging from space agencies to advocacy groups. Together, they are working to formalize an U.N. framework for coordinating an international response to potentially dangerous NEOs. Their recommendations, which will be presented in February, are expected to include proposals to establish two institutions. The first is an international asteroid warning network to coordinate the search for NEOs, determine which ones are threats, and what their characteristics are (what they’re made of, how fast they’re traveling, and other factors relevant to trying to deflect them). The second group is a “space mission planning advisory group” — comprised of engineers, astronauts (and cosmonauts, and maybe taikonauts), and other representatives of various countries’ space agencies — to plan potential responses to threats. It’s a good start, but some experts feel it’s moving too slowly (surprising no one familiar with the United Nations).
For now, it would probably fall to the few countries with advanced space-launch technology and powerful ballistic kinetic weapons — the United States and Russia, most prominently — to try to divert an incoming NEO.
Blowback
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Bruce Willis.
Bishop on December 13, 2012 at 10:42 PM
Who has the most to lose? I would say at this point it is China so lets make China responsible for defense of the planet.
crosspatch on December 13, 2012 at 10:46 PM
The UN is a much bigger threat to civilization than any asteroid.
ThePrimordialOrderedPair on December 13, 2012 at 10:47 PM
Leave SMOD alone!
HotAirian on December 13, 2012 at 10:49 PM
That little one that skipped by between Earth and the moon, hoooo….that’s really close considering the immensity of space.
I’m thinking if someone discovers a planet killer heading for a collision, the governments just won’t tell anyone.
Bishop on December 13, 2012 at 10:50 PM
That job belongs to the racist, homophobic, sexist capitalists who have stolen all the world’s wealth from the minorities. If the asteroid hits, it will be all Booosh’s fault. His tax cuts made it happen.
petefrt on December 13, 2012 at 10:53 PM
The Avengers
SoulGlo on December 13, 2012 at 10:55 PM
Yep, more than any asteroid or more than any man-made global warming theory, by a long shot.
petefrt on December 13, 2012 at 10:57 PM
Actually, that’s counterintuitive. Our government thrives on keeping the pee-pul in a state of fear.
fossten on December 13, 2012 at 10:58 PM
Really? This is even a question?
It would be the US’s responsibility, as seen by the rest of the world. And they’d hate us for being able to do what they can’t.
Of course they would provide “input” as to how to get rid of the asteroid, so long as we pay for their expert opinion. Either way they’d complain that we’re doing it wrong.
Certain parties would protest, saying that the asteroid was here first and we are the aggressor, so we should just accept our fate. And then hate the US even more for destroying “the innocent ball of space yarn.”
The Dems would only agree to asteroid’s destruction so long as we raise the debt ceiling, hire union labor, and fund in perpetuity a research facility to study asteroid destruction, and the positive effects of bunny hugging.
The media would run special reports of the US’s aggression. Talking heads would pontificate on, “why can’t the US just talk to the asteroid?”
Then finally a brave crew of Republicans would get rid of the thing before we’re all wiped out like the dinosaurs, and none of the above would ever thank us for saving their lives.
LincolntheHun on December 13, 2012 at 11:02 PM
NASA?
Oh, I forgot, they are now tasked with something more impossible than getting to Mars, making islam look relevant to science.
wildcat72 on December 13, 2012 at 11:02 PM
Depending on where it lands…the question may be “Whose job is it to NOT stop an asteroid from hitting earth?”
I for one encourage asteroids to hit San Francisco.
Vegi on December 13, 2012 at 11:04 PM
I nominate Canada. We can’t do everything.
emz35 on December 13, 2012 at 11:11 PM
Meh, who’s job is it to make it happen?
It’s direly needed.
Schadenfreude on December 13, 2012 at 11:13 PM
MINE!!!
Stand back and watch, bitches.
Stu Gotts on December 13, 2012 at 11:18 PM
Lol. Smart a$$es apparently all think alike. I just saw this headline and that was my immediate thought as well.
NotCoach on December 13, 2012 at 11:18 PM
It’s my job. Please send free money to rodewerkdestroysNEO.com
Rode Werk on December 13, 2012 at 11:19 PM
Congressional Black Caucus.
SouthernGent on December 13, 2012 at 11:21 PM
Judging by the game I’m watching right now, the Bengals might be able to pull it off.
Ugly on December 13, 2012 at 11:22 PM
People, this is the Internet. We know who’s responsible for smashing rogue asteroids and for performing any and all acts of awesomeness: Charles Nelson Reilly.
Baerwulf on December 13, 2012 at 11:29 PM
LOL – mine too
NoLeftTurn on December 13, 2012 at 11:34 PM
Or Kikkoman.
Ugly on December 13, 2012 at 11:34 PM
Gays. They brought it upon us to begin with.
lester on December 13, 2012 at 11:40 PM
If the answer is Congress, we’re all Flucked.
trigon on December 14, 2012 at 12:01 AM
Wait. We have Obama as President. Nothing that evil could ever befall mankind again thanks to that. Why, he’s already stopped the seas from rising… hasn’t he?
Warner Todd Huston on December 14, 2012 at 12:06 AM
Don’t care anymore just hope it is quick.
arnold ziffel on December 14, 2012 at 12:10 AM
Nobody knows,but when it happens you can damn sure bet it’ll be George Bush’s fault….
Tim Zank on December 14, 2012 at 12:17 AM
Hater.
trigon on December 14, 2012 at 12:29 AM
OH MY GOD…. The Stupid…. It BURNS…
Ok, let’s just get real for a second, M’k??? If a small comet or asteroid say, 3 miles across (which would be quite small by comet or asteroid standards, since comets and asteroids average somewhere between 15 and 25 miles across) came hurtling out of the dark directly at the earth at 50,000 miles per hour…
There is absolutely nothing what so ever we could do to stop it. Even the biggest Russian nuclear warhead ever made, the infamous Tzar Bomba, isn’t powerful enough to destroy it, or even deflect it off it’s course.
The UN special project to defend the Earth from a comet or asteroid strike is the exact same kind of Ponzi scheme as their Panel on Global Warming.
SWalker on December 14, 2012 at 12:30 AM
It all depends on how much time we have to react. An asteroid on a collision course with the Earth that is 10 times the distance of the Moon away would only need to be deflected by 0.2 degrees at the most to miss the Earth. If we have determined with a high degree of probability that an asteroid will strike the Earth some number of years from now, then the amount of energy we would need to expend to divert it drops dramatically the sooner we act. That’s because the sooner we attack it, the less we have to deflect it. An asteroid 100 times the distance of the moon from us? A 0.019 degree movement. 1000? 0.0019 degrees, and so on.
NotCoach on December 14, 2012 at 12:57 AM
Sorry NotCoach, I used to do this stuff for a living. We do not have the ability to do anything about even a small comet or asteroid hitting us. Even if we saw it coming ten years out. I’ve been over all the “Projected” ideas, and none of them would work. It isn’t me saying this, it’s every astrophysicist who has ever done the math who says that.
SWalker on December 14, 2012 at 1:07 AM
I don’t believe it’s impossible because it’s all about time. Several years advanced notice means minimal effort to move any asteroid only very slightly. Remember, the Earth is only 7,901 miles across. An asteroid 10s of millions miles away from impacting the Earth would only need its orbit changed by an almost imperceptible amount to miss the Earth.
Quite frankly I am more concerned about the composition of an asteroid, assuming enough advance warning. What do we do about a collection of loose material? Will a kinetic impact from a nuclear device or simple mass work at all on a loose material asteroid? Will the gravity tractor method work? I think the European Space Agency plans on crashing a satellite into an asteroid in the next 10 years just to test what sort of effect it has on the asteroids orbit. I am sure we will learn a lot from that experiment.
NotCoach on December 14, 2012 at 1:25 AM
They already did that. Rammed a 5 ton spacecraft into a 5 mile across asteroid at 35,000 miles per hours, the explosion was visually spectacular, but didn’t alter the asteroid’s trajectory one bit.
SWalker on December 14, 2012 at 1:33 AM
In 1960, we couldn’t go to the moon. Heck, we couldn’t get a rocket off the pad consistently. Nine years later we had guys up there.
If we can’t do it now, we need to get working on it. Learning how to deal with these objects is probably going to be very important to our future even if one isn’t going to be hitting us anytime soon.
We’re supposed to be smarter and more capable than the dinosaurs. Getting taken out by a rock, just like they did, would really be embarrassing.
trigon on December 14, 2012 at 1:43 AM
Not 5 tons of mass, but equivalent to 5 tons of dynamite exploding. It was a small impact device designed to study the nucleus of a comet. The impactor weighed only 820 lbs.
NotCoach on December 14, 2012 at 1:50 AM
Thank you.
OldEnglish on December 14, 2012 at 2:09 AM
Please deposit your brain in the community box for science.
chimney sweep on December 14, 2012 at 2:40 AM
Exactly! Despite hating us the rest of the world always looks to the good old USA when they need help.
The Notorious G.O.P on December 14, 2012 at 3:11 AM
I thought you used to be a rock star for a living? And aren’t you the guy who said California was in play for Romney this past election?
xblade on December 14, 2012 at 3:11 AM
cableguy615 on December 14, 2012 at 6:19 AM
I was going to say you forgot sarc tag. Forgive me Pete. It’s not even 0630 yet and my head is a blur !
cableguy615 on December 14, 2012 at 6:22 AM
DUUUUUUHHHHHHHH-UUUUURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR !! My whaaaaaaa ????????
-Molester
cableguy615 on December 14, 2012 at 6:23 AM
I’m afraid we’ll just have to watch from the Space X mars colony.
The other choice is the target the asteroid with a bioengineered enzyme that eats the asteroid, converting it to twinkies, Ho Ho’s, and Lithium ever ready batteries.
RINOs are people too on December 14, 2012 at 6:26 AM
You just want to nudge it, so if you get the science down pat, you can nudge the asteroid just so to make it crash into your enemy, then you go “oops”.
Buddahpundit on December 14, 2012 at 7:18 AM
Not it.
Red Cloud on December 14, 2012 at 8:04 AM
They poked fun at that in the recent Steve Carell movie about an asteroid wiping out the earth. At the beginning of the flick, it’s stated they’ve got 3 weeks til it hits. Then towards the end, it’s revealed it was really 2 weeks all along and it’s implied the government hid that from the public(not sure why, as civil unrest would be bad no matter what).
Doughboy on December 14, 2012 at 8:14 AM
You should be able to calculate the enerrgy required to deflect a NEO, but the real trick is the accuracy calculating the trajectory that far ahead in time in the first place.
Red Creek on December 14, 2012 at 8:45 AM
We should probably just start nudging all Earth killers into Jupiter or the Sun just to be safe.
NotCoach on December 14, 2012 at 8:49 AM
The article requires signing up for an account with FP.
Thanks fer nothin’.
MrLynn on December 14, 2012 at 9:05 AM
Can’t we just sacrifice some virgins like they used to do?
Wha? There aren’t any? We’re screwed…
Fallon on December 14, 2012 at 9:09 AM
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