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A Horrible But Real Possibility Looms Ahead

rhinefire

rhinefire

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For the most part scientists agree it is a matter of when, not if a meteor strikes the Earth. Governments would do everything in my opinion, to keep it secret for fear of world wide chaos. However, there is one problem...the internet. Surely, one has to believe when this occurs a portion of people with access to the truth will get on the internet and it will spread like wildfire and all hell will break loose world wide. What is even worse, what if the time line before impact was one year? So here is my question, what are you going to do in that one year? Kinda scary ain't it?

Oh, one more thing, science cannot stop anything so massive so don't believe for one second we can blow these up with rockets before they hit.
 
rhinefire said:
For the most part scientists agree it is a matter of when, not if a meteor strikes the Earth. Governments would do everything in my opinion, to keep it secret for fear of world wide chaos. However, there is one problem...the internet. Surely, one has to believe when this occurs a portion of people with access to the truth will get on the internet and it will spread like wildfire and all hell will break loose world wide. What is even worse, what if the time line before impact was one year? So here is my question, what are you going to do in that one year? Kinda scary ain't it?

Oh, one more thing, science cannot stop anything so massive so don't believe for one second we can blow these up with rockets before they hit.
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It may be fun to think about, but since there's nothing we can do about it? Might as well think about what you'd do if the sun exploded.

The most recent large meteor to fall to earth happened in February of this year. It weighed 10,000 tons. 1,500 people were injured. Meteorite Pulled From Russian Lake Is One of World’s Biggest | TIME.com
 
The federal government needs to subsidize some insurance policies. The one I have is pricing me out of the market:

zombie-insurance.jpg
 
There are space programs designed to identify all large asteroids that could potentially hit the earth. We should follow up by creating probes that can intercept said asteroid and nudge it enough to miss.
 
This book, which is as much a police proceedural as Sci-Fi makes a brilliant postulation of just how a looming asteroid disaster would impact society, how the giovernment and people would react. Really, a very good book - check it out: THE LAST POLICEMAN

What’s the point in solving murders if we’re all going to die soon, anyway?

Detective Hank Palace has faced this question ever since asteroid 2011GV1 hovered into view. There’s no chance left. No hope. Just six precious months until impact.

The Last Policeman presents a fascinating portrait of a pre-apocalyptic United States. The economy spirals downward while crops rot in the fields. Churches and synagogues are packed. People all over the world are walking off the job—but not Hank Palace. He’s investigating a death by hanging in a city that sees a dozen suicides every week—except this one feels suspicious, and Palace is the only cop who cares.
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I don't think geologists have ever found evidence of a meteor that destroyed all life on earth. But there probably is a 1 in 10 billion chance it will happen next year.

What is more likely is that when we look at space we are only long back in time, not the present. So it is impossible to see anything coming at us at light speed - even if it has been coming at us for millions of years. Any second now, and taking only a few milliseconds, all life on earth could be instantly obliterated by the radiation and heat a mega super nova that happened a hundred thousands years ago - we just don't know it. All would end fast as snapping your fingers.

Then again, that can happen if you are hit by a truck or have a heart attack.
 
specklebang said:
This book, which is as much a police proceedural as Sci-Fi makes a brilliant postulation of just how a looming asteroid disaster would impact society, how the giovernment and people would react. Really, a very good book - check it out: THE LAST POLICEMAN
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There also is a book in which some in the astronomy elements of science provide bogus proof that a huge asteroid traveling at an incredible speed will hit and totally destroy earth in 22 years - using doctored old and new cosmic images to prove it at great distance. For this, all governments efforts turn to giving those scientists all the power and money they need - for which they use that money and power not only to permanently entrench themselves in power, take control of nuclear weapons and military money, but also set up worldwide standards of ethics and conduct under the guise of maintaining social order.

Ultimately, they have launched all nuclear weapons using all possible materials for any many as can be made to set off a series of blasts in space - it taking a few years travel and continuing to launch them as fast as possible - to divert the path of the astroid - and ultimately declaring success - now being in control of everything as a result of the fraud. They declare the astroid was just one of many of such potential so they need to keep control of the military and all nuclear weapons to be stockpiled for the next one, which they claim is inevitable.

A young scientist discovers the fraud and reports it, not realizing he is reporting it to the perpetrators. They are unconcerned and congratulate him on his skill of making the discovery, and tell him to just go pick out any Ferrari or Mercedes he wants, any house in town he wants and he now has a 7 figure income... OR he can go try to get anyone to listen to him like just another conspiracy kook for all the good it'd do him. But why would he want scientists and himself to be broke, powerless and society to go back to what it was anyway?

The book ends with him deciding on a Mercedes because driving a Ferrari is too pretentious.
 
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joko104 said:
There also is a book in which some in the astronomy elements of science provide bogus proof that a huge asteroid traveling at an incredible speed will hit and totally destroy earth in 22 years - using doctored old and new cosmic images to prove it at great distance. For this, all governments efforts turn to giving those scientists all the power and money they need - for which they use that money and power not only to permanently entrench themselves in power, take control of nuclear weapons and military money, but also set up worldwide standards of ethics and conduct under the guise of maintaining social order.

Ultimately, they have launched all nuclear weapons using all possible materials for any many as can be made to set off a series of blasts in space - it taking a few years travel and continuing to launch them as fast as possible - to divert the path of the astroid - and ultimately declaring success - now being in control of everything as a result of the fraud. They declare the astroid was just one of many of such potential so they need to keep control of the military and all nuclear weapons to be stockpiled for the next one, which they claim is inevitable.

A young scientist discovers the fraud and reports it, not realizing he is reporting it to the perpetrators. They are unconcerned and congratulate him on his skill of making the discovery, and tell him to just go pick out any Ferrari or Mercedes he wants, any house in town he wants and he now has a 7 figure income... OR he can go try to get anyone to listen to him like just another conspiracy kook for all the good it'd do him. But why would he want scientists and himself to be broke, powerless and society to go back to what it was anyway?

The book ends with him deciding on a Mercedes because driving a Ferrari is too pretentious.
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The Last Policeman (I felt) was very realistic but if you'll cough up the title to your recommendation...I'll give it a read.

In TLP the Federal Government does exactly what I would expect in a real-life circumstance. No conspiracy and they refuse to allow Pakistan to nuke the asteroid because then the eary will be shoowered with thousands of radioactive segments, again, very plausible.

Hold the limo, I'll take cash.
 
rhinefire said:
Oh, one more thing, science cannot stop anything so massive so don't believe for one second we can blow these up with rockets before they hit.
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Nope, but since we can see them coming years, if not decades ahead of time, there's plenty of time go do other things that do not include blowing it up. You only have to change it's course a fraction of a degree to get it to miss us altogether. Science. It works.
 
A European satellite will crash on Nov 10, 2014 hopefully it will kill everyone except the hired help.
 
joko104 said:
I don't think geologists have ever found evidence of a meteor that destroyed all life on earth. But there probably is a 1 in 10 billion chance it will happen next year.
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It's theorized that the entire Gulf of Mexico was caused by a metorite and the fallout from that blast caused the extinction of the dinosaurs.


What is more likely is that when we look at space we are only long back in time, not the present. So it is impossible to see anything coming at us at light speed - even if it has been coming at us for millions of years. Any second now, and taking only a few milliseconds, all life on earth could be instantly obliterated by the radiation and heat a mega super nova that happened a hundred thousands years ago - we just don't know it. All would end fast as snapping your fingers.

Then again, that can happen if you are hit by a truck or have a heart attack.
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But don't you find it interesting that the last known most destructive metorites to hit the earth in the last 100 years were in Siberia?

They recently learned from the metorite that hit Siberia that its the sonic blast from the metorite hitting the earth's atmosphere that creates most of the damage because the boom is so powerful that it blows out glass windows and that is where most of the injuries to humans come from.

So for Siberia, it might be feasible to have windows with shatter proof glass....but for the rest of the world.....not so much since it has more earthly disasters to contemplate and prepare for such as hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, volcanoes and severe drought.
 
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Perhaps the entire human race could gather at the initial point of contact and punch it, en masse.

Worth a try, anyway. Either that or accuse it of Antisemitism.
 
joko104 said:
I don't think geologists have ever found evidence of a meteor that destroyed all life on earth.
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Yes they did, they've known about it since the 70s. There is a crater, defined by magnetic disturbances, at Chicxulub, Mexico.
 
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