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Being an expert in Astro-Physics, I know I don’t know enough to say anything on this subject…. just marvel at it. In general though==the distances in space are so huge that it gets compressed in any pictorial presentation. IOW-in order to see the sun and the planets, the spatial relationship gets all squished giving a very false impression of the compactness of it all.
Just saying.
Hmmm—not as compacted as I thought?
http://exploratorium.edu/ronh/solar_system/
Read somewhere that the mass of all the asteroids is equal to about half our moon. Again–the pictorial representation of size vs distance is very misleading.
We are soooooooooo doomed! Oh, well – enjoy each and everyday, because tomorrow may be all over!
What it comes down to is that for now we can’t even find something the size of a railroad car until it is about to impact and an iron object that size can pretty much take out a town. One of the dust balls on the other hand would get you a loud boom. Nobody was able to track the thing as would be required if you wanted to launch a missile at it though that _might_ be easily possible to do using current hardware if they rewrote some of the software. The signals had to be hitting it and bouncing off.
The good news is that this suggests some interesting SF story lines.
Interesting SF? Hardly, the Sci-Fi (no, not SyFy crap channel name) has an asteroid hitting the Earth movie on about every two hours 7×24……………and they all suck.
Yep, game over man – been nice knowing you! WE ARE ALL GONNA PERISH IN FLAMES!! enjoy your asteroid apocalypse…
I’ve seen this video before, but not with commentary. The tidbit about AZ’s cloudy season is very interesting.
That little thing that happened in Russia has got everyone talking about asteroids.
You are much more likely to be killed in a traffic accident than killed by an asteroid. Really.
On the other hand, there was that lady in Oklahoma that had a meteorite crash through her kitchen roof and demolish her cabinets.
Never mind.
The point is traffic accidents can ONLY kill dozens at a time, ship and airplane accidents can ONLY kill hundreds at a time, volcanoes can kill 1000’s, tsunamis can kill 100K’s, WAR can only kill millions.
Asteroids can demolish the entire earth and everything on it. Course, you know that.
Then again, an asteroid is only a tool. Only a Monster would use an asteroid to kill everyone on Earth.
Course, you know who I mean.
Heh, heh.
Asteroids don’t kill people, people kill people.
Silly hoomans
anyone watch the video in full screen mode? when the animation stopped it looked like it was going the opposite direction for a while….
as for the results of the discoveries.. let hope we dont go bump in the night with one of these..
also brings to mind about the speculation of other intelligent life being in the universe, an their potential survival rate of their worlds not getting clobbered before one can colonize other words and or protect their own. this would alter the Drake equation results somewhat. 🙂
also brings to mind about the speculation of other intelligent life being in the universe….
The phrase “other intelligent life” assumes that humans are intelligent.
There is no empirical data to suggest that humans are intelligent. A brief summary of human history proves otherwise.
Until intelligent life discovers us and reveals itself to us, we have no concept of intelligence or how to achieve it.
The Drake equation suggests there may be intelligent life somewhere in the vast universe that has survived random calamities and adolescent warfare, but we silly hoomans most likely will not survive long enough to be discovered by them.
The undiscovered ones are the ones we should worry about…
If we accidentally stumble across intelligent life, we will most likely destroy it without realizing what it was.
If intelligent life arrives on this planet, hopefully they would treat us better than we would treat them.
Nevertheless, we would be completely at their mercy.
wat
“I think I saw some Klingons hanging around Uranus.” ~ Adm. T. Kirk
Alien: To your planet, welcome.
McCoy: I think that’s my line, stranger.
Alien: Oh, forgive. I here am new. But you are known, being McCoy from Enterprise.
McCoy: You have me at a disadvantage, sir.
Alien: Oh, I name not important. You seek I. Message received. Available ship stands by.
McCoy: How much and how soon?
Alien: How soon is now. How much is, where?
McCoy: Somewhere in the Mutara sector.
Alien: Oh, Mutara restricted! Take permits many; money more.
McCoy: There aren’t gonna be any damned permits! How can you get a permit to do a damned illegal thing? Look, price you name, money I got.
Alien: Place you name, money I name, otherwise bargain, no.
McCoy: Alright, damn it! It’s Genesis! The name of the place we’re going is GENESIS!
Alien: Genesis?
McCoy: Yes, Genesis! How can you be deaf with ears like that?
Alien: Genesis allowed is not! Is planet forbidden!
My uncle has a case of them Asteroids says it hurts like hell when he goes to the bathroom.
Crazy Americans – an ‘asteroid’ when it’s outside the hemisphere, but call it ‘hemorrhoid’ when it’s in your ass.
Thanks folks, I’m here mon-fri after 5pm
I for one would like to welcome our new asteroid overlords.
once again, the “wow factor” of large numbers is used to distract us from the pertinent data.
consider that perhaps 90% of this sim is irrelevant..
how about deleting the distracting green asteroids and just showing the red ones. maybe add the yellow ones in later for “color’
i mean come’on, i’m sure a similar display of all the space junk we’ve launched into orbit (and summarily forgotten) would provide for a simulation that looks very similar to the asteroid model. -only of course, most of our junk is radioactive..more “wow” for your buck, i guess.
-s