Know what’s really comforting? When a completely unobserved asteroid snuck up on Earth at the end of last month and went whizzing by our planet like a golf ball, without so much as a “Fore!” from any of our detection systems. And it happened this week. Again.
The new asteroid, both smaller and a closer call than the next most recent specimen (from like two weeks ago—seriously this isn’t comforting), was still tens of thousands of miles away and had no chance of hitting Earth as it sailed by. And I guess that’s comforting to someone.
But regardless, sailing by unnoticed is not a good sign when we’re trying to build early warning systems to protect ourselves from the potential of mass extinction events caused by impact.
Someone should really try and study these things.
I suggest everyone go re-watch Deep Impact and take a few hours to reflect on how this isn’t something we should make mistakes with.
[H/T Gizmodo]
