This isn't that odd or that off-the-wall, in light of the many OTHER threats that are now facing the planet:
World's "Asteroid Busters" Widen Their Search.
This is the sort of information that ought to make people stop fighting about bits of real estate or ideas and start thinking about preventing and coping. Could that ever happen?
Lately, I've felt oddly optimistic. (Can we have a chorus of "Peace Train"?) I'm probably wrong about that too, but it beats hell out of the alternative.
Anyway:
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Scientists warn there are as many as 100,000 of these "smaller" heavenly bodies with the potential to take out entire cities or set off a tsunami like the killer wave that swept through the Indian Ocean in December 2004.
Earth's craters bear silent witness to what can happen even when a smallish asteroid slams home. In 1908, one struck remote central Siberia, unleashing as much energy as a 15-megaton nuclear bomb. Fortunately, it wiped out 60 million trees, not people. Had it hit a populated area, the loss of life would have been staggering.
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Fortunately, there is some good news:
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There's some recent good news too: Earth's most pressing threat - the asteroid 99942 Apophis - appears to have eased. Scientists initially gave it a 1-in-5,500 chance of hitting the planet in 2036, with enough power to wipe out the New York City metro area. But experts said Thursday the latest observations suggest those odds have dwindled to 1-in-30,000.
They won't be sure until it makes an earlier pass in 2029, when it's expected to come within 18,640 miles of Earth. If that sounds comfortably distant, consider this: It's closer than many commercial satellites and a good deal nearer than the moon.
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Man. I don't expect to be alive in 30 years, but my nieces and nephews will be. Let's hope it gets sorted out before then.
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