It’s good to know that we’re not the only ones who get spooked by giant death-rocks from outer space hurtling towards our home. The United Nations does, too, and that’s why they’re moving forward with plans to create an International Asteroid Warning Group. The network of participating nations would let everyone know when there was an asteroid threat to the Earth and then launch a mission to ram it safely off course.
The Association of Space Explorers recommended that such a group should be formed back in 2008, but the meteor that struck Russia earlier this year may have finally caused the UN to take action. Flying balls of death tend to have that effect on peacekeeping organizations.
Luckily, the Chelyabinsk meteor was relatively small and caused no fatalities, but it was definitely a wake up call, since no one even saw it coming. Add that to the recently discovered, 1,300 foot asteroid that NASA is only 99.998% sure won’t hit the Earth in 2032 (most near-Earth objects 100% definitely won’t hit us), and you can see why someone might think we need to pay a little better attention to space.
Plus, there are, like, a million dangerous asteroids that fly by the Earth. No, really. According to ex-astronaut Ed Lu, “There are about 1 million asteroids large enough to destroy New York City or larger.” Luckily, the United Nations plans to be there to nudge any potential asteroid threat onto a less murdery path.
The formation of International Asteroid Warning Group is still early, so we can only guess that part of their preparations will include assembling a ragtag team for the mission and pulling at least one maverick astronaut out of retirement.
(via The Verge, image via NASA APPEL)
- Still, NASA is fairly certain that the most pressing threat won’t even hit us
- An explosion of material in the atmosphere of the sun beautiful and a bit scary
- Watch Legend of Korra star Janet Varney promote a movie about the apocalypse
