Friday, March 8, 2013

Harmless Asteroid to Make Fly By

An artistic rendition of a fly by asteroid
This weekend, more specifically on Saturday by astronomers' calculations, an average sized asteroid will just miss Earth. By just miss, I am making a statement relative to the infinite expanse of space. In reality, the asteroid will only reach a distance 604,500 miles away from Earth. To put that in perspective, the distance from Earth to the moon is a mere 238,900 miles. Astronomers estimate that the asteroid, appropriately named "2013ET," is that size of a city block. For all of you aspiring astronomers out there, 2013ET is already observable in the night sky, even with "sophisticated amateur telescopes."

Thought this one was graphic
What's more alarming, however, is when the asteroid was first sighted. Don Yeomans, planetary scientist at NASA's jet propulsion laboratory here in California, stated that the asteroid was first sighted on Sunday. Sunday! NASA has previously stated that it doesn't have the technology to deflect an asteroid with a trajectory towards Earth. What if 2013ET, worst case scenario, was headed towards the Bay Area? Is a one week warning good enough?
Posted by at

4 comments:

Unknown said...

While the impact was close to happening, that doesn't mean we should all suddenly panic because one of billions and trillions of rocks whizzed by our planet again. Every year, tons of asteroids big and small fly by Earth and we don't give too much though to them. I agree that it is unnerving that the scientists only realized the asteroid (whose name is indeed ironically appropriate) was there on Sunday. Even if we had the means to deflect an asteroid crash, we wouldn't have had time to respond in time.

If the asteroid was heading toward the Bay Area, I figure a one week warning should be enough for most people in the area to evacuate in time. However, actually preventing such a crash would be extremely unlikely. Thankfully, there's little chance this would happen anytime soon. Don't use nuclear weapons though, though some disagree with me.

Of course, this brings up the question of whether the government should use funds to prepare for such a possibility. Obviously, it would be for the public's good to create some sort of asteroid defense system (there is a new hope though). However, it would take quite a bit of money and the government would probably need to tax us citizens quite a bit, which we probably won't like. A problem with capitalism is that people won't go out of their way to fund such a program if there's no immediate profit for it. There would also be various externalities involved as well.

Overall, we shouldn't stress out over this when we have more important issues to worry about (cough sequester economy cough). Be rest assured that such an incident is unlikely and read this if you need to calm yourself. Also, if you want to see this asteroid, check this out.

March 8, 2013 at 10:43 PM
Sam Sokolsky said...

Even if we found out this astroid was going to hit planet earth a week in advance, or even six months or a year, I don't think there is much we can do to prepare. Seeing as an anti-astroid device would be a market failure because of the free rider problem (woohoo economics), I guess all we can do is hope we don't get smashed by one in our lifetimes

March 12, 2013 at 8:58 PM
Unknown said...

I agree with Matthew and Sam. An asteroid sighting does not mean everyone needs to freak out and run for cover. Although this asteroid may be particularly close, making it somewhat more significant than the many that pass by Earth, I don't think it is necessary for everyone to panic. Also, to branch off the discussion in class about an asteroid defense system as well as Matthew's comment, I think it would be a pretty ridiculous use of money since it would be impossible to charge people for because of free-riders (as Sam mentioned) and because we would just rarely have to use it. It is very likely that we will not need such a public good in our lifetime. I think we would be better off funding scientists to detect potential asteroid collisions further in advance (unlike this incident) so people can adequately react and evacuate which would be far more effective than an asteroid defense system.

March 12, 2013 at 11:42 PM
Unknown said...

Man, where are those anti-asteroid lasers we talked about in class when you need them. Reiterating what the other three said, I feel like this asteroid is more of a cool sighting for astronomers than a catastrophic threat. In terms of government involvement and funding, I think that it would be overall beneficial to have some detector that could predict asteroid collisions further in advance, as it is the difference between a crazed chaos and the possibility of an orderly evacuation. That being said, its not like major asteroids hit the earth on a regular basis, or for that matter ever in the modern world, so any funding for a detecting system should be at the rock bottom of priorities. Basically, it would be a cool luxury, but our government funds need to be going towards more pressing matters and more practical/rational problems.

March 14, 2013 at 9:07 PM

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)