Monday, unreported to the masses, an asteroid passed by the Earth just past the satellites in orbit of the planet. No one was warned, and nothing was sad until today. The asteroid was between 70 and 150 feet in diameter. Now you may be wondering what happened, or why you should care.
Well first off is why you should care. The asteroid is the same size as one that struck the Earth in 1908. That one hit with the force of a nuclear blast, in Siberia, completely destroying 800 square miles of forest and possibly causing a minor 'ice age' in Europe that lasted some 5 years. Effectively, had that asteroid hit, any major city in the world would have been wiped out in seconds.
As for why nothing was said, it was because scientists were sure it would miss. Mind you that the asteroid was only found late in February this year. The asteroid was moving so fast that it covered 1 million miles in roughly less than 2 weeks. Aren't we glad they got the math right? Be more glad that they found it.
The fact is that there is an unknown number of asteroids that might hit the Earth any and every day. Less than 5% of the visible sky has been charted for possible threats. But it is a guaranteed fact that eventually, something will hit our planet. How bad that could be depends on what actually hits us.
The asteroid that possibly wiped out the dinosaurs was in the E.L.E. level. That's Extinction Level Event, for those that have not seen the multitude of movies (like Armageddon) and television programs (Discovery Channel) about the subject. But it does not have to be that big to do damage. Plus events happen more often than you think.
In 2004 an asteroid was within 4,000 miles of the surface and in our atmosphere. In 2008 an asteroid luckily burned up before it could hit in Africa. That one was found a mere 19 hours before it began to plunge into our planet.
So give your mom a call, or hug a loved one. Because Bruce Willis can only save the day in a movie, and we were lucky on Monday.
No comments:
Post a Comment