Original printed byline: Hawkeye Z. Hoerr
Historical February–March 2010 article. Dates, prices, services and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.
“Russia to Plan Deflection of Asteroid From Earth”: that was a headline in the December 31, 2009 issue of the New York Times. Honest – I am not making this up.
When is this going to happen, you wonder? Is it time to pack your unread copies of The New Yorker and Sports Illustrated, and head for the hills? Relax, the best projection is that we have until 2032. You can go ahead and send out your laundry. Despite the fact that everything seems to happen more rapidly, 2032 is a long way away. Who knows if we’ll have colonized the moon or Creve Coeur by then?
We can be sure that while much will change, some things will remain constant: In 2032, we’ll still be arguing over health care, the St. Louis riverfront will be without tourist attractions, and the Guadalajara Rams (formerly the Anaheim Rams, the Toledo Rams, and the Salt Lake City Rams) will be a poor football team. Apophis, the asteroid – yes, someone named it (thankfully they didn’t call it Rover or Fluffy) — is 885 feet wide and composed of hard rock (how’s that for redundant?). That is three times the size of the asteroid that landed in Russia in 1908 and flattened 80 million trees. Imagine the Chase Hotel or 142 Rush Limbaughs hurling through the air at you while they hold hands and you’ll get a sense of what this might be like.
I have a science background, so I know that where the asteroid lands is relevant.
I mean, realistically, it doesn’t matter much if this rock plops into the ocean. Oh sure, there would be gigantic splash, a few fish get toasted, and surfers thousands of miles away will have some nice waves, but that’s about it. File it under kerplunk.
On the other hand, if this orb hits land, it’s a different story. Coming in at thousands of miles per hour, the impact would create a big crater and send dirt and dust thousands of feet into the air. How big?
The technical term is “a damn big crater.” If you’re near there, you’re in trouble.
The sound of the crash would burst eardrums and ring church bells. Of course, with bursted eardrums, no one would hear the church bells. Ca-choo, there would be a lot of dust. Dinosaurs became extinct after a slightly larger asteroid landed in Mexico sixty-five million years ago (before it was officially Mexico; I think the land was then part of Texas). That orb kicked up so much dust and pollution in the skies that the temperatures dropped precipitously; they dropped a lot too.
In fact, the pollution resulted in a lack of sunlight which led to an ice-age that lasted millions of years. Dinosaurs didn’t have access to winter coats or space heaters, and reptiles that they were, they were gone.
If not for that asteroid, this column might be written by a Tyrannosaurus. (No comments, please!) Presumably we’ll know where Apophis is going to land before it hits, so we can be prepared.
If the destination is a desert or wooded area, one lightly populated, I can see giant plastic tarps being dropped by a helicopter armada shortly after impact.
The tarps would be huge, maybe two or three miles square, big enough to cover where those 240 million trees were, and would be designed to keep the debris contained. Think of helicopter after helicopter lifting giant tarp upon giant tarp, maybe all covering an area the size of Rhode Island or a hundred Super Wal-Marts! Where is Bruce Willis when we need him?
If the rock hits a major population area, even a minor population area (that would be a youth camp, right, get it?), it’s all over. Certainly it’s all over for everyone there, whether they’re in a Starbucks, basement bomb shelter, or sitting at home watching re-runs of American Idle.
Then you can begin to speculate: Would Apophis trigger the San Andreas fault? Might earthquakes rumble or Tsunami wave because of the impact? Would this cause a cable TV outage? Of course, it’s all about probability.
It could be that this rock whizzes by. Close only counts in horse shoes and hand grenades, so a near miss is as good as a big miss. Or a Ms.
But all of this speculation arises because, gulp, we are in the line of fire. Thus changing the course of the asteroid seems a prudent move, and we should all hope Russia is successful. Realistically, assuming contact can be made, this doesn’t seem all that difficult.
I mean, how much force can it take to redirect an 885 wide piece of rock that is flying through space at thousands of miles per hour?
After all, they only need to change course enough to redirect it away from Russia. What’s the likelihood?
When Apophis was first discovered in 2004, it was projected to have a 1 in 37 chance of walloping us. That’s not a typo: one in THIRTY-SEVEN. Would you get on an elevator if the chances of it dropping were 1 in 37? Would you drive a car if your chances of having an accident were 1 in 37? Subsequent projections have lowered the likelihood of a hit to 1 in 45,000 or, perhaps, as low as 1 in 250,000. Lest you get too relaxed, however, remember that these projections are from a government agency – just like the one in charge of airline security. And what are a couple of decimal places among friends, anyway? Maybe Apophis will be like H1N1, more smoke than fire.
But perhaps not. Maybe it will hit us and cause pestilence, famine, world disaster, and an ice age which wipes out life as we know it.
It kind of puts the Rams in perspective.
Originally published in The Times of Skinker-DeBaliviere, February–March 2010.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times2010_02.pdf, printed page(s) 8; PDF page(s) 8.
