Do we have a viable plan to protect the earth from meteorite disaster?
602779
Not yet, but we are taking the first step, which is to identify and track as many near Earth asteroids as possible. After all, you cannot deflect an asteroid unless you know it is there.
58407
Well, I don't think I can convince you; you're apparently believing false information...but rest comfortable in knowing that the atmosphere is not deteriorating and nothing drastic is going to happen…during your lifetime.\n\nThat being said, eventually, the Earth (and its atmosphere) will wind down to a point where it won't sustain human life. That's the natural process, but we won't see it for several billions of years.\n\nHumans couldn't destroy the atmosphere or planet if we tried...even with nuclear weapons.\n\nOther people may answer with differing opinions, but their "evidence" is based on false science and anecdotal evidence and is designed to be alarmist. There's no rest for the weary!
597044
No sense in trying to stop it. We as humans have pissed mother earth off big time and now she is protecting herself. The earth will out last us. We do things to the earth and think nothing of it, it can be as simple as someone throwing a cigarette out the window, what if everyone did that? what would it look like? I go to secluded lakes and find fishing line that birds and other animals can get caught in, 6 pack rings that are deadly to our wildlife, hooks an innocent person or animal could step on, booze bottles, trash everywhere, it is sickening and we are losing land every day. No respect for her why should she care what happens to us. The only way to stop global warming is to start respecting the earth and every living thing on it, we as humans have not grasped that simple concept, no it may not happen in my life time or even yours but doom is eminent unless we smarten up, we do not own the earth we are just fortunate enough to stay here. Sadly we are ignorant souls and don't give a hoot. How sad is that?
655485
There will be no tsunamis, firestorms or mass extinctions to spoil your Memorial Day weekend. \n\nAlthough the Internet is rife with speculation that a fragment of Comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 will strike the Earth on May 25, neither the main comet nor any of its more than 40 fragments pose a danger to Earth. \n\n"We are very well acquainted with the trajectory of Comet 73P Schwassmann-Wachmann 3," said Donald Yeomans, manager of NASA's Near-Earth Object Program Office. "There is absolutely no danger to people on the ground or the inhabitants of the International Space Station, as the main body of the object and any pieces from the breakup will pass many millions of miles beyond the Earth."\n\nImage above: Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys took images of the disintegration of Comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3's fragment B. Click to EnlargeCredit: NASA, ESA, H. Weaver (APL/JHU), M. Mutchler and Z. Levay (STScI)\nMovie: Zoom to Fragment B close-up: + 544 Kb QuickTime | + Windows Media \n\nHowever, you can see the comet falling apart right before our eyes, thanks to NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. \n\nRecent Hubble images have uncovered many more fragments than have been reported by ground-based observers. These observations provide an unprecedented opportunity to study the demise of a comet nucleus. \n\nNone of the comet's fragments will come closer than 5.5 million miles to Earth during its closest approaches May 12 - 28. That's more than 20 times the distance from the Earth to the moon.\n\nThe main fragment, designated fragment C, will pass closest to Earth on May 12 at a distance of approximately 7.3 million miles. It will be visible to small telescopes during the morning hours in the constellation Vulpecula. NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope will observe the comet in May. \n\nAstronomers have been observing the comet for more than 75 years. The trajectory of this comet has been monitored and refined over time, and its path around the sun is well understood. Amateur and professional astronomers around the world have been tracking its spectacular disintegration for years. \n\nThe comet is currently comprised of a chain of fragments, named alphabetically, stretching across several degrees on the sky. (The sun and moon each have an apparent diameter of about 1/2 of a degree.) Ground-based observers have noted dramatic brightening events associated with some of the fragments (as seen in the image below) indicating that they are continuing to break-up and that some may disappear altogether.\n\n Image above: Ground based view of fragments B and G, R, and N on April 8, 2006. Credit: M. Jäger and G. Rhemann \n\nHubble caught two of the fragments, B and G, shortly after large outbursts in activity. Hubble also photographed fragment C , which at the time was less active. The resulting images reveal that a hierarchical destruction process is taking place, in which fragments are continuing to break into smaller chunks. Several dozen "mini-fragments" are found trailing behind each main fragment, probably associated with the ejection of house-sized chunks of surface material that can only be detected in these very sensitive and high- resolution Hubble images.\n\nSequential Hubble images of the B fragment, taken a few days apart, suggest that the chunks are pushed down the tail by outgassing from the icy, sunward-facing surfaces of the chunks, much like space-walking astronauts are propelled by their jetpacks. The smaller chunks have the lowest mass, and so are accelerated away from the parent nucleus faster than the larger chunks. Some of the chunks seem to dissipate completely over the course of several days.\n\nDeep-freeze relics of the early solar system, cometary nuclei are porous and fragile mixes of dust and ices. They can be broken apart by gravitational tidal forces when they pass near large bodies. For example, Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 was torn to pieces when it skirted ne
1033707
The world was supposed to be created with the big bang theory so I guess God giveth and God can taketh away also.\n\nMaybe we might be hit by a large meteorite which was suppose to have been the reason why the dinosaurs were wiped out.\n\nI think more in the lines of all this bombing and terrorism will be the earths downfall. I think one of the countrys are going to hit the button of mass destruction and just nuke us all! (KABOOM)  Lately it seems to be every country for itself. Todays society are very inhumane and the people are like a mob of barbarians. They have all gone stark raving mad!\n\nWho knows??\n\nI hope it will happen long after I am gone.
902513
"According to astronomers, the Earth should last for at least five billion more years before the sun becomes a red giant. Due to the sun's loss of mass the Earth would escape to an orbit at a further distance than its current orbit. The immense heat however would likely boil off the oceans and turn the Earth into a barren wasteland looking like Mars does. If the Earth survived this event, the sun would further evolve into a white dwarf and provide too little heat to sustain life."\n\nNormally I don't copy and paste but Wikipedia explained that a lot better than I could've. I guess the "five billion years" estimate is assuming that some other catastrophe doesn't happen in the meantime, like an asteroid impact or human-created disaster or anything like that. But if none of that happens, Earth will be here for a while yet.
986970
*Shrug* Depends on your beliefs. Do you believe in God and an Apococlypse? Do you believe that the current state of affairs in the world is so f^#$ed up that we'll either blow ourselves to pieces, die of disease, over-population, crop failure, or poisoned water before our grandchildren are born? \n\nThe answer is we don't really know. It depends on how wise we become in the next few generations, and whether we (meaning, humanity) can get our enviormental pollution, war-mongering, and population growth under control. Hypothetically speaking our planet won't be destroyed until the sun becomes a red giant in approximately 4.5 to 5 billion years. So humanity, if it never developed space travel, could last that long. But unless major changes are made in the coming fifty to one hundred and fifty years, we may well be facing yet another mass extinction of life on earth (this wouldn't be the first major extinction...).
970160
Yes, I do because Earth is not a closed system. If it were, meteorites would never hit.  I have an interesting comparison (to me at least)  about comets "seeding" the earth....... have you ever noticed that earth resembles an "egg" and comets resemble sperm?  they have heads & tails like sperm...... and the term panspermia......... just a thought.......
32067
It seems to me that natural disasters take a pretty good toll each year.  Perhaps you need to read the newspaper more often or listen to the news.  It's really amazing the knowledge one can gain by doing these things on a regular basis.  You might be amazed at the number of wars that are in progress, at any given, time around this unfriendly earth of ours.  Yet, the earths population continues to grow.  During WWII, Russia alone lost over 20 million people, yet here we are 60 years later and their population is as robust as ever.  War might resolve population explosion over the short term, but it doesn't take human kind very long to pick up the slack.  The ecosystem on the other hand, does need some immediate TLC.  The Icelanders may have found just the solution to a big part of the problem.  It seems that Iceland has a very short term timetable to convert all of its vehicles to hydrogen power.  Now as I understand it, hydrogen is the mixture of nitrogen and water which causes combustion.  It supposedly is not much cheaper than oil, however it is cleaner. Much cleaner. The problems this could solve are unlimited.  Just think, we could tell the whole middle east to blow itself to hell and take it's filty oil with them.  Sorry, I digress.  In summary, perhaps it is best to let mother nature take over the population issues, frankly I enjoy being there to help correct the problem when mother nature goes too far.
538777
Many of us would like to live our live and find out what our purpose is, so it would be rather selfish to KABOOM the the earth. It is the internal Satan we must fight. I believe that the core of the earth is fire for the sake of keeping the oceans stable. I do not believe that he is down there,.. only in a portion of our heart. We have to find solutions to extinguish the devil there.
545695
I'd lay pretty good odds that the destruction of a planet in our solar system, and one not even that far from us relatively speaking, would have such catastrophic consequences on the Earth that we'd probably all be destroyed. That is one reason we might resist the otherwise obvious urge to blow up Mars.
1028700
So far our asteroid deflection technology is only hypothetical. We would probably want to study our options in more detail first, as well as learn more about the structure of asteroids. Actual missions to asteroids take lots of time and money, which no one is prepared to spend just yet.\n\nWhich brings up a key point - asteroid defense is pathetically underfunded, in both threat detection and deflection technologies. If more people asked questions like yours, maybe the powers that be would do something about it.
633323
NASA wont let that happen. NASA have already announced that an asteroid is speeding towards and NASA also have said that they are prepared for it. Acording to thier plans they are going to launch a spacecraft which will be equpied with 3 rocket bombs. This space craft will launch 3 rocket bombs far away from earth atomosphere in space towards Asteroid which will break up asteroid. though NASA have also said that earth shud be ready to face lots and more frequent rocks falling from space due to debris created by collsion of rocket bombs and asteroid in sapace.
843987
NO.\nCould be end of times for humans but not for Earth.
947106
WASHINGTON -- While astronomers predict only a minimal blast of dust debris from comet Tempel-Tuttle for the Leonid meteor shower this week, some spacecraft controllers are on standby alert.\n\nFor the past two years, measures have been taken to protect Earth-circling satellites from the Leonids. High-velocity particles can wreak havoc with spacecraft, damaging solar panels, as well as delicate sensors. \n\nHits of speeding comet debris can also spark electrical effects in a satellite, possibly causing control thrusters to accidentally fire.\n\n[uplink]\n\nThe potential severity of the Leonid shower in 1998 and 1999 spurred a number of precautionary action items for satellite ground controllers. \n\nSelected satellites and components were powered down. "A team" personnel took over consoles during the showers. And a number of spacecraft solar panels were adjusted to minimize exposure to incoming storm debris
1031470
The Earth is a finite resource and will become uninhabitable one day.   Global warming, nuclear accident, hit from a big rock from space - there are plenty of disaster scenarios.\n\nWe need to be prepared.  To that end NASA needs to do so much more research, travel to other planets, set up a base on the moon and mars and, above all work towards spaceflight being like flying today.   Sound far fetched?   When my dad was a boy man couldn't fly and before he died men were standing on the moon.\n\nProfessor Stephen Hawking, he who wrote 'A brief History of Time', recently stated that if mankind did not seek out planetary travel pretty quickly there was a good chance a natural disaster would wipe out all human life!
513079
Scientific research and statistics are showing that the earth will turn uninhabitable.....\n\nThat is why there is a current rush for alternative inhabitable places other than the Earth.\n\nThe Indian scientists have made a plan to utilize Mars as an alternative home, and the Moon as the source for minerals. For this, India is sending a "Chandrayan", a part of which will rotate round the Moon, and another will get into the atmosphere and land on the Moon, to get more informations. This has even made NASA to collaborate and attach their components(two) with it.\nAlready NASA is quite ahead in exploring the Mars.\n\nIts worth noting that still Neil Armstrongs team is the only one to land on the Moon, which is even controversial.\n\n\nSo, don't worry......even if the Earth is gone......the mankind is powerful enough to find an alternate option.........