On Friday a meteor the length of two vans and weighing at 15 tons injured about 1,200 Russians. The web has been abuzz with searches for videos and/or pictures of the horrifying event. Many of the injuries were caused from falling debris. The blinding light was truly unbelievable. Some people actually thought a war had commenced. The speed of some of the meteorite sounded like a sonic blast.
Today, the Daily Beast posted an article entitled: “Are you Living in an Asteroid Danger Zone?” Experts say Russia is among the most vulnerable to infrastructure damage and casualties due to meteorite collisions.
In a 2009 study, Nicholas Bailey ranked Russia at the second most likely spot for damage to buildings and land. But, he concluded, “China faces the greatest risk to its population, while the USA’s infrastructure is most at risk.”
Maybe we should take President Obama’s advice and fix those bridges and roads already.
“The threat of the Earth being hit by an asteroid is increasingly being accepted as the single greatest natural disaster hazard faced by humanity,” wrote Bailey.
Though most meteoroids are tiny and invisible to the naked eye, burning up in Earth’s atmosphere before reaching the ground, experts closely monitor larger asteroids. Researchers from NASA believe there are some 47,000 “potentially hazardous” asteroids—at least 330 feet wide—within 500 million miles of Earth. In other words, they are close enough to potentially hit Earth and big enough to make it through the atmosphere.
Between potential zombie apocalypses, alien invasions and massive power outages we now have this to worry about. Hopefully this won’t become a problem because Bruce Willis isn’t getting any younger. Oh wait (spoiler alert) he died on that last one. I guess Ben Affleck could step up and do the job.
Ben Affleck at the 2008 World Series of Poker (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
In all seriousness, asteroid collisions are very common in outer space. In fact it may have been the main factor in the extinction of dinosaurs. Realistically speaking I think we are going to face an impending collision sometime in the future. I just don’t know when. The probability of a collision is unfortunately on my side.
What do you think?
Do you think we will get hit by an asteroid in our lifetime?
Is there anything we can do to prevent it? Or should we be more focused on obtaining protocols for what happens afterwards (that is of course if we don’t all die)?
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Twitter: @adrakontaidis & @talkrealdebate
