By snoadmin
Last week’s Russian meteorite incident made many of us Earthlings wonder, what would happen if an asteroid was heading straight towards our planet?
If you missed the many Russian YouTube videos documenting the incident, a meteorite exploded in the Earth’s atmosphere over Russia on Friday. The meteorite’s explosion was equal to 500,000 tons of TNT. It lit up the Russian sky and sent a shockwave that shattered glass, set off car alarms and lightly injured more than 1,200 people.
The Russian meteor incident came moments after countries watched an asteroid the size of an Olympic pool whizz by close to Earth. Had it crashed into our planet, it would have taken out an entire city.
The event that took place over Russia, however, is pretty rare. NASA reported that incidents like this happen only once every 100 years.
NASA has been tracking asteroids a kilometer or more in diameter since 1998. Congress ordered NASA to document asteroids that orbit around the sun and Earth that could cause cataclysmic damage to our planet. So far, NASA said these asteriods account for 95 percent of all those in orbit.
Now, that might make you feel somewhat at ease, but what about the other 5 percent? Also, even if NASA were to detect an asteroid heading towards Earth, what would we do?
Would we build a giant ray gun? Maybe send Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck up to drill a bomb into the center of the asteroid to blow it to smithereens? All the while, Aerosmith throws a big benefit concert, and Steven Tyler and Liv Tyler sing “Don’t Want to Miss a Thing.”
Yes, that last suggestion was outrageous. But really, what would be the world’s plan in a scenario like this?
There are a lot of expensive options, such as nuclear bombs, gravity tractors or lasers. However, an asteroid heading towards Earth would be a planet-wide dilemma. The entire world would have to come together in order to combat the common enemy.
In all reality, the odds of a civilization-ending asteroid heading toward us in the near future are slim. But in the unpredictable dark realm of space, anything is possible.
The safest thing for us to do is not worry about it, or just become good friends with a character from the television show, “Doomsday Preppers.” Maybe they will let you live with them in their bunker if an asteroid falls from the sky.
