Now, right now, with very little data, they are projecting it will miss Mars by about 650,000 miles. That’s a close shave, but not real exciting. The key words however, are being “with very little data”. That leaves a LOT of room for error. Additionally, from what I’ve read so far, this comet is BIG. Big enough to do some serious damage. Possibly would destroy one of Mars’ moons ( they’re not much more than big rocks anyway ). And, it would permanently alter the appearance of Mars. As well as, destroy our rovers and give us a remarkable first-person view of what it would be like getting hit by a comet. This stuff is really cool!
If it survives it’s pass with Mars, it will come pretty close to Venus, and even closer to Mercury. Now, from the orbit guessing I’ve seen so far, they’re not sure how close exactly it’s going to get to Mars. Then, they don’t seem to adjust it’s orbit at all when it does pass Mars. So, watch out Mercury and Venus in December 2014!
If this thing does hit Mars or any other planet, it won’t mean the end of life as we know it on Earth, but it could create some serious problems ala February 15, 2013 times 1,000.
Tossing all the conspiracy theories aside, this will make for one spectacular view in Fall 2014 for sure!
I got a problem with all this. Firsties, I don’t believe there are aliens with super technology floating around Earth’s atmosphere. Just call it a hunch. Secondies, even if they were, shooting it down where they did probably caused more human damage than if they had just let hit a little farther in Siberia, or possibly even the ocean. It wasn’t really that big of a deal. If they were smart enough to fly all over the universe to hang out discretely, they’re smart enough to know that it wasn’t that big of a threat.
Given that, the only option left was the Russians “intercepting” it, which the Russian government actually did say they had done. The Russians do claim to have the fastest missile on Earth right now, the BrahMos. It travels up to Mach 3.0 supposedly. Pretty dang impressive huh? The meteor would have been traveling at about Mach 11 and they would have had about 20 seconds to launch and hit it. That’s all the warning the world got.
What’s even cooler is they’ve now decided Apophis is bigger than they originally thought. It’s now thought to be about 1,000 feet long. That’s pretty dang big. That’s life-on-Earth changing big. It wouldn’t end life on Earth, but it could completely obliterate a very, very, large city. Which leads me to this rather bothersome article in Astronomynow.com.
First we got:
The asteroid will return to Earth’s neighbourhood again in 2036, but quite how close it will come then is uncertain, as the 2029 approach is predicted to alter its orbit substantially. Obtaining improved physical parameters for Apophis and its orbit is thus of great importance in being able to make better predictions of its future trajectory.
Then, in the same article, we got:
“Although Apophis initially caught public interest as a possible Earth impactor, which is now considered highly improbable for the foreseeable future, it is of considerable interest in its own right, and as an example of the class of Near Earth Objects,” says Goran Pilbratt, ESA’s Herschel Project Scientist.
Now, I think they’ve always felt that the 2029 pass will alter it’s orbit. And, I’m sure they probably felt they had a good idea how it might affect it’s orbit. But, as the 2013 pass has already shown, they were basing that information on bad information. It was off by about 75% apparently.
Okay doomsday peeps, here you go. That means, realistically for now, they have no clue where it will go in 2029.
In case someone actually is not aware, Friday is the end of the Mayan calendar according to one guy who wrote a book. This is the weather forecast for what’s left of mankind:
Okay, so in order for a planet to collide with Earth next week, one would have to assume it’s probably pretty visible right now. Looking in the sky, I see nothing. However, I do see a headline, from, this week?
I doubt it. As cool as this thing is, it’s 100 light years away. It might be something to worry about in 50,000 years or so, but next week is pretty safe.
The author ponders the various possibilities of whether it could be a real mammoth or not. Some things I can buy, like it’s Siberia. It’s a huge place, it’s Ice Age cold there, and there’s just not a whole lot of people to bump into. However, the argument the author makes kind of falls apart on me when he cites a paranormal writer to give their expert opinion on a living animal. There’s just plenty of other more appropriate professionals who deal with living animals than a guy who writes books about the afterlife. They also ponder some of the other things it could be. I think I’m more in that boat than the Whoolly Mammoth one. They’re just too big to go unnoticed for 4,000 years.
NASA has the usual cover-up, this time’s it’s some crazy far-fetched fantasy like an echo ( ghost ) image on the camera. That takes a lot to buy in order to believe. It’s just so much more obviously Romulans.
Before I go too far, really need to start by reading this report. It’s a little long at 30 or so actual pages, but it’s pretty fun.
If you actually did read it, we can have some fun now. If you didn’t, the rest won’t make much sense.
The premise:
While humanity has not yet observed any extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI), contact with ETI remains possible. Contact could occur through a broad range of scenarios that have varying consequences for humanity. However, many discussions of this question assume that contact will follow a particular scenario that derives from the hopes and fears of the author. In this paper, we analyze a broad range of contact scenarios in terms of whether contact with ETI would benefit or harm humanity. This type of broad analysis can help us prepare for actual contact with ETI even if the details of contact do not fully resemble any specific scenario.
Now, the blurb that got my attention:
“Green” aliens might object to the environmental damage humans have caused on Earth and wipe us out to save the planet. “These scenarios give us reason to limit our growth and reduce our impact on global ecosystems. It would be particularly important for us to limit our emissions of greenhouse gases, since atmospheric composition can be observed from other planets,” the authors write.
OK, Gateway Pundit and Hot Air immediately go off on this report. Dismissing it as “stupid”. But, there’s a lot of content here to play with.
First of all, they address the fact we’ve never been contacted. They attribute this to the Fermi Paradox. Wavy lines emerge as I drift back to the day I thought about the Fermi Paradox. In essence, if there are billions of planets and millions with life, why haven’t any come here? Well, maybe because there’s just nothing terribly special, in the galactic sense, about Earth. Drake’s Theory puts a very real limit on space travel as we know it. What it does, as I’ve always felt, is it points out that in order to move in such a way that you can zip all over the universe, you got to use some pretty profound amounts of energy. Regardless of how you do it, it will most likely be expensive. If there are solid planets of valuable resources, that’s where ET will go. Some tiny little planet with lots of trees, cows to gut, and H2O won’t cut it. There’s millions of those out there. So, they would have to come here for a different reason.
Then, they discuss electronic contact. That really doesn’t get too terribly exciting.
Then they get into the meat.
The reason to believe that ETI would be more advanced is because humans and human technology are relatively recent phenomena in the history of Earth. We have only had radio communication for about a century, or just a few generations, which suggests that advanced technology can develop quickly compared to evolutionary timescales. Following this reasoning, it is likely that any extant ETI has been around much longer than us and would have developed far greater technological abilities than we could imagine for ourselves. Even if an ETI is younger than us, the very ability to contact us would likely imply progress beyond that which our society has obtained. We have not yet figured out how to achieve interstellar communication or travel; a society that has these capabilities is almost certainly more technologically advanced than we are……
Did ya follow that? I’ll try to dumb it down a little. If they are smarter than we are, that means, they are smarter than we are. The reason they would be able to communicate with us is because, you guessed it, they are smarter than we are. They’ve been working on radios a lot longer than we have. Next.
They then discuss to some detail how selfish or universal ET might be. Well, that’s fine and good, but it’s pointless in that they are assuming we would care. Man’s kind of reactionary, distrustful, and easily intimidated. Our first instinct in a lot of situations is to shoot first, ask questions later, and let God sort everyone out. They may come here with all the good of the universe in mind, but if that benefit to the universe is to rid it of Earthlings, being selfish wouldn’t make a whole lot of difference for us.
They then ponder our reaction to contact. They think we might not get along too well. They’re probably right. But, exactly how do they think Aleuts are going to communicate with the aliens? It will be a limited response.
They then sum it up with two suggestions. Be careful what we tell them. And, the blurb.
The reason the “blurb” is so stupid is because of what they cite in The Hitchhikers’s Guide to the Galaxy. They didn’t come and chat with humans and decide the planet needed to be saved, they blew it up without telling anyone to make way for an intergalactic highway. The scenarios are endless.
Who are these scientists?
Seth D. Baum, Department of Geography, Pennsylvania State University
Jacob D. Haqq-Misra, Department of Meteorology, Pennsylvania State University
Shawn D. Domagal-Goldman, NASA Planetary Science Division
Someone who studies the physical makeup of the Earth, someone who studies weather, and someone who studies other planets. And the only real conclusion is if we don’t take care of the planet, something else might?
OK, there’s a fight going on right now over cutting wasteful spending……..
Bottom line, there’s ALL KINDS Of first contact scenarios that have already been explored. This scenario they come up with is simply the plot to The Day the Earth Stood Still remake.
Without going to a whole lot of trouble, and absolutely no expense whatsoever to the taxpaying public, I’ve put together some other first-contact analysis:
And coming this fall, Apollo 18. From what I can tell, a movie about astronauts who go to the Moon and find alien bugs with incredible broken technology.
That’s not exactly the way I took it. But according to the story:
A spokesman for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab told FoxNews.com it was investigating the wild claims, speculating that “Bio Station Alpha” would most likely be determined to be a glitch in the digital imaging or an unusual feature on the surface of the planet — and not a Martian base.
A singular object, over 700 feet long and 150 feet wide on Mars? A singular object. I don’t think that makes the first bit of sense. It may be a visitor to Mars, but any intelligent form of life, if they’re going to build on the surface, but definitely build a lot more than one stadium and call it good.
I’m with the glitch theory. I hope they don’t waste a lot of money figuring it out. In the meantime, let’s watch a cool trailer:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHRf01Gjosk]
It’s obviously the Enterprise.
won’t cut it. There’s millions of those out there. So, they would have to come here for a different reason.
. That really doesn’t get too terribly exciting.
.
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