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Yes... What an event to keep the earth on its guard. Satellites now are constantly checking out what's coming toward us from space. Another 15 megatons today coming into perhaps heavily populated areas well.......
You ever notice that those lurid documentaries on Discovery and NGC always have these gigantic meteors exploding over New York or Paris? Anybody know what the odds are of that in real life?
I read that the Tunguska incident happens every few centuries. Smaller meteorite incidents every 25 years.
The science-fiction author Larry Niven once said that the difference between us and the dinosaurs is that we have a space program. Looks like we'll be using that to fend off stuff that allegedly killed the dinos.
I was intrigued by what's called a 'gravity tractor'. Besides blowing up asteroids with rockets it was suggested that the 'GT's get towed up near to the object so the effect of gravitation can simply do its job to adjust the course of the object. Now that's a beautiful way way to solve a dangerous problem.
You ever notice that those lurid documentaries on Discovery and NGC always have these gigantic meteors exploding over New York or Paris? Anybody know what the odds are of that in real life?
Considering that our planet has been hit by sizeable asteroids/meteors numerous times in the past, it's probably not 'if', but rather when we'll get hit again. As for the odds, I haven't a clue, but probably not likely in our current lifetime.
Never taught in our history lessons but a must see..
Well, it's not a part of human history. No one was killed. Trees in a sub-arctic wilderness were knocked down.
Really, I wouldn't expect much discussion of this in education outside of an astronomy class - something like Solar System Dynamics or such.
Quote:
Originally Posted by travric
Yes... What an event to keep the earth on its guard. Satellites now are constantly checking out what's coming toward us from space. Another 15 megatons today coming into perhaps heavily populated areas well.......
Actually, ground-based telescopes discover near-Earth objects. Satellites sometimes track the movements of known objects post-discovery. But the Tunguska object wasn't that large, almost certainly less than 150' across, that it probably wouldn't be discovered until it was very close to impact. There would be no intercepting it. And even when it was discovered, initial plotting on where it would fall would be so general there would be no way to flee - because you wouldn't know if you were going way from or towards the eventual impact site. By the time precise estimates were available, it would be too late.
However, its worth remember that a typical Tunguska-type event would be no more - and probably much less - catastrophic than many earthquakes or hurricanes.
All one needs to do is look at the surface of the moon and see the impact craters. It's just a matter of time when another big one hits the earth. It may be a few months or hundreds of years, but it's going to happen again. It's a crap shoot.
No doubt the scientists will continually gauge the probabilities of meeting up with a incredibly large objects on a course to perhaps hit earth. And those if research is correct are probably the ones to really worry about since they correlate with extinction events. And those strikes happened in the last 260 million years.
One theory is that the Tunguska event may have been Nicola Tesla doing a field test to show effect of his latest potential gizmo (check out Joseph P Farrell) and its effect was so uncontrollable as to never be attempted again (by Tesla). Or was it a stray meteor remnant?
An interesting corollary to Tunguska is the Chicago fire and other fires in October 1871 occurring concurrently around Lake Michigan in Wisconsin, Michigan and Illinois. Ignatius Donnelly posited they were caused by meteor shower remnants from Comet Biela ( a recurring comet first noticed in 1772 by Austrian, Wilhelm von Biela. When it passed earth in 1854 Comet Biela had changed in appearance and never was seen again after 1872. Those series of fires including Peshtigo fire were more devastating in deaths than that which occurred in Chicago.
There was a recent article (Barnes Review - I think) that was well done and it made me wonder if Tunguska may have been a lingering stray from Biela making its last pass by earth?
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