Earth-Bound Asteroid

I never post articles with the intention of promoting fear, but this is an experience I just had and wanted to share, as I find it interesting.

Before bed, I listened to a tape on retaining conscious recollection of astral projection experiences (of which I fell asleep shortly into, but it all gets stored in the subconscious mind regardless). I became aware, half way through the night, of flying at incredible speeds up towards the earth's upper stratosphere. I remember the first time I flew outer orbit, and how it had scared the hell out of me in terms of isolation, the feeling of vulnerability, and the sheer height. Seeing the curvature of the earth is something most of us will never see in this lifetime, as well as the fascinating transition from the light that reflects while in earth's atmosphere to the darkness of the stars when you leave that very atmosphere.

After I left the atmosphere and things grew dark, I was mentally told about an earth bound asteroid. Not only was it heading towards earth but it was known about, although not publicly disclosed (due to obvious hysteria problems). After being told of the asteroid, I mentally traveled to it and saw a large brownish/black rock being hurled through space. Here is a photo of 433 Eros which is a almost identical to what I saw (rather like a big potato!).

If and when it would really hit, I don't know (could have been picking up on an event that wouldn't happen for a hundred years or so). But the government was thinking about ways to destroy it, such as a nuclear missile (which relates to the reference below where a top scientist states that nuclear intervention might be the best bet).

Oddly enough (and perhaps even related) I keep seeing huge tidal waves in my travels. It was rather weird to read that fragments from a comet or asteroid crashing into the ocean would cause tidal waves of unbelievable, if not "almighty", proportions.

Regardless if and when it would hit, we would be the last to know (that's probably a good thing) so just focus on your here and now.

** Although scientists constantly attempt to assuage our worries that a near earth asteroid impact is an unlikely event, it was only a month ago that a near-earth asteroid was detected AFTER it flew by earth by less than two lunar distances! The fact is, we only detect a small portion of objects in our orbit.

Here's some interesting background on earth-bound asteroids/comets:

A Date for a Collision is Predicted
Summarized from an article by Robin McKie, entitled '21 September 2030: the date scientists predict an asteroid will hit the Earth', in The Observer (5th November 2000). Scientists have now put a specific date on when Earth may be hit by an asteroid: 21st September 2030. Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory were the first to notice the risk, and their conclusions were soon verified by a group of experts from the International Astronomical Union. The risk of impact is one in 500, which is something of a first for the scientists involved in the field of impact prediction. As David Morrison, a space scientist at Nasa's Ames Research Center, says, "We have never before had a prediction at this high level of probability. In the past we have talked about one in 10,000 or one in a million."

The object in question, called 2000 SG344, is believed to be an asteroid with a diameter of between 100 and 230 feet. It would hit Earth with a force 100 times greater than Hiroshima, assuming that it is made of stone and iron. There is a possibility, though, that it could be more loosely made up of stones and gravel and thus disintegrate when it enters the atmosphere. The scientists will have to wait till 2028 before the asteroid comes back into their range of observation in order to verify the asteroid's make-up and orbit, though. And that would leave little time for any sort of deflection or interception effort.

How safe is Earth from asteroids? And can it be made safer?
Information summarized from a number of articles in the Guardian, New Scientist, The Sunday Times, The Times, The Economist and The Daily Telegraph.

In July 1994, fragments from the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 collided with Jupiter, under close observation by astronomers, watched in turn by an eager press. The impact clearly registered how enormous the devastation wrought by relatively small asteroids-traveling at 72 000 km per hour-could be, and prompted a flurry of reassessments of the Earth's vulnerability to such cosmic vagaries. It also provided the immediate spur for the Pentagon to launch a multi-million dollar feasibility study of asteroid defense systems.

In 1908, a cosmic body, thought to have been no more than 60 metres in diameter, exploded over the remote Tunguska region of Siberia, laying waste to about 2,000 square kilometres of forest land and taking a still unknown number of human lives. Such an impact over a more populous area would be unimaginably devastating.

Such scary thoughts have provided the immediate background to the American government's approval of a multi-million dollar project researching the feasibility of asteroid deflection. Clementine 2, as the project is called, will launch a satellite into a distant orbit, equipped with high speed probes which can "lock on" to asteroids, and strike them at up to 40,000 mph. Each probe will be equipped with sophisticated camera equipment which will record the deflective effect of the impacts. The technology is strikingly similar to the Star Wars programme, whose fantastic budget produced some advances in missile technology but very little-as experts had always predicted-in the way of an effective missile shield. Star Wars was abandoned, partly as a result of its gigantic budget, partly because of the disappearance of the 'Soviet threat'. Skeptics have suggested that the asteroid threat is merely a convenient premise for the notoriously powerful 'military-industrial complex' to continue hoovering up vast subsidy and further refining the instruments of terrestrial cataclysm.

The alternative view, proposed in a 1993 Economist editorial, argues that the long-term risk is significant and that only myopia keeps Western governments from funding research into collision prevention: "A report to America's Congress in 1992 by a panel of experts said that if there were a [major asteroidal collision] a quarter of the world's population would die. If the annual risk is one in half a million, that gives an annual risk of dying of one in 2m, and a lifetime risk of dying one in 30,000. The one in 2m risk can be turned into an equivalent annual death rate of 2,700 worldwide, 390 in the rich countries. The British government reckons that it's worth $1.2m to save a life through increased road safety; from that, you might expect the developed world to pay $470m a year to deal with asteroids. At present, in fact, precisely nothing is spent on dealing with this risk."

A compromise strategy may be available, however. If the currently popular initiatives are all too alarmingly compatible with terrestrial weapons development, researchers in Russia and America have recently proposed a rather more pacific strategy for asteroid deflection. Involving launching a mirrored aluminum sail on an orbit tracking an asteroid's, it is essentially a much-enlarged refinement of the schoolboy technique of setting light to things using a magnifying glass to focus the sun's rays. Here, sunlight focused to a temperature of some 2000 degrees centigrade would be reflected onto a point on the side of an asteroid, vaporizing ice and rock on the body's surface which would in turn translate into a vapour jet of sufficient velocity to deflect it from collision with Earth. Professors Jay Melosh and Ivan Nemchinov concede that their technology would rely on long range advance information on collision courses-10-15 years ahead for larger bodies. Whilst this degree of forewarning would not be possible for every cosmic vagary, the two argue, with sufficiently well-developed monitoring it would be enough to avert over ninety-per cent of potential disasters.

Given that even such distinguished observers as the Jodrell Bank pioneer, astronomer Sir Bernard Lovell, is appealing for governments to pay more attention to this "very real risk"' it may be that the time has come to put some of these apparently remote contingency plans into action.

Telescoping the problem?
Information summarized from a number of articles and letters in the New Scientist and The Times, Summer 2000.

A government panel of experts, the Near Earth Objects Task Force, have recently stated that urgent international action is needed to decrease the risk of a large asteroid hitting the Earth. Their report concluded that global co-operation to track potentially dangerous asteroids and comets, and research into methods of deflecting them, is the only answer to the problem.

The panel proposed building a 9ft telescope in the southern hemisphere to track medium-sized asteroids. This telescope would aim to complement the efforts of US-based initiatives which focus on objects larger than 1 kilometre across in the northern hemisphere. Further to this, a second European telescope would track any objects found by either project.

Professor Colin Kirk (Professor Emeritus of Astronautics and Space Engineering at the College of Aeronautics, Cranfield University) agreed in a letter to The Times (Sept 2000) that tracking and detecting would be enhanced by the addition of such telescopes. He went on to point out, though, the problems with firing a nuclear missile at an asteroid, stating that chances of success were small due to complexities of missile tracking, debris after a strike, and the speed of the intended targets.

His conclusion was that early warning was of 'questionable value' as the impact site would only be able to be estimated just days before the event. Therefore, the sole benefit of early warning might only be to enable us to enjoy our last few days.

In the US, Robert Gold, of John Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland recently proposed a three-part defense system, involving similar ideas. Firstly, a set of orbital telescopes (similar to the Hubble telescope) would identify and track threatening objects. Secondly, a set of spacecraft which could be deployed to intercept the incoming object. Then, finally, an Earth-based control centre to oversee the whole system.

Gold also believes that exploding a nuclear bomb somewhere close to the object's surface would be the best method of interception, with the blast designed to "kick" the asteroid or comet off course. These intercepting craft could be launched, Gold suggests, from orbiting around Venus. Whatever the solution, the scientists are agreed that the impact of such an object poses the greatest (natural) threat to the long-term survival of mankind on Earth, and that a detection and interception system is urgently needed.

Cosmic asteroid golf could devastate cities on Earth
Summarized from an article by Mark Henderson, entitled 'Secret game of cosmic golf could smash cities', in the Times (April 12th 2001).

A new piece of research by two British scientists has suggested that the ability of nuclear weapons to divert the course of asteroids could be used offensively as well as defensively. Drs Asher and Holloway have used a computer simulation to demonstrate how a secret space weapons system could cause an asteroid impact on Earth deliberately, while making it appear as an act of God.

Firstly, a civilian space mission could be launched which was actually a rocket with several, say fifteen, nuclear weapons on board. This mission could later be claimed to have been lost contact with. The nuclear warheads onboard could then be placed in orbit around an asteroid. These warheads could then be detonated, one by one, to line up the asteroid gradually with its target on the Earth's surface. If the golfing analogy is used, it is like a golfer having fifteen shots to get the ball in the hole - and those are good odds. In the computer simulations, Dr Holloway and Dr Asher landed an asteroid within 100 miles of Telford 30 out of 40 times, using no more than fifteen detonations. Five of the remaining ten still hit the United Kingdom.

The frightening aspect to this scenario is that the whole process could be kept entirely secret. The perpetrators (be they a rogue state or a terrorist group) could select an uncharted asteroid, and do all the explosions when the sun is between the Earth and the asteroid to make the blasts invisible from this planet. By the time any country became aware of the danger, it would be too late. The key may to be improve tracking equipment so that more asteroids are tracked, and so any change in their orbit can be detected. Until that happens, a deadly game of cosmic nuclear golf remains a possibility.