You people didn't believe me: Record meteorite hits Norway

[Sc4freak]

There's more of a chance that you'll spontaneously combust rather than a gigantic Earth-shattering meteorite killing you.

 

[nutball]

This scares me, this is why I believe something should be done about this.

Something be done ... something like what?

Meterorites and comets are really nothing to worry about, they're kids stuff, there's no way they threaten the end of the world. Earth has been hit by them on many previous occasions and survived, suffering little more than a major extinction event wiping out ~85% of life on Earth. Hardly the end of the world!

What you really want to be worried about is a collision with a Mars-sized object, eg. the Moon-forming impact, which really did threaten the structural integrity of the planet. Quite how we'd divert a planet-sized body on collision course with Earth is pretty much a matter of science-fiction, and will be for centuries to come. But the good news is that that's already happened, and there's no evidence for rampant Mars-sized bodies on Earth-crossing orbits.

But look on the bright side, without the Moon-forming impact we wouldn't have such a large Moon. The influence of the Moon which has been suggested as a contributing factor to the overall stability of the Earth's climate, stability which has allowed life to flourish. Even the mass-extinctions caused by comets & meteors are good news for some ... the wiping out of the dinosaurs allowed mammals to take their place, including humans. No meteor strike = no Kruno.

Or... perhaps you should worry about more practical matters. It makes far more sense to worry about dangers you can actually do something about. Compare, for example, the number of people hurt by meteorites in the past decade with the number who have come second in a dispute with an ironing board.

Instant giga-death from space is either going to come, or it's not. If it does there's nothing we can do to stop it, so there's no point worrying about it. If it doesn't, there's no point worrying about it. Much better to get on enjoying what little of our lives we have left really.

 

[K.I.L.E.R]

I remember when I was a child there were commets with a fiery tail coming into our solar system.
Jupiter's gravitational pull forced those commets into Jupiter which would otherwise have hit Earth.

Why is it that everything that happens in our solar system feels so "set up"?

 

[nutball]

It's not "set up", it's just that it's been around long enough to have reached a kind of balance. All the crazy shit of its teenage years are behind it and it's settled into contented middle-age.

Jupiter isn't there to protect Earth, it protects Earth because it's there.

 

[Crusher]

I remember when I was a child there were commets with a fiery tail coming into our solar system.
Jupiter's gravitational pull forced those commets into Jupiter which would otherwise have hit Earth.

Why is it that everything that happens in our solar system feels so "set up"?

That's like saying it's a set up when you roll a die and it always turns up a number between 1 and 6. There's no trick being played, it's just the facts of the physical attribute of the die, and it follows the laws of physics just like everything else. If the comet was NOT affected by Jupiter's gravity, then that would be something unusual and worth noting.

 

[London Geezer]

I think we shouold worry about more imminent things first. Like, the Moon falling down to Earth for example. I mean it's logical that eventually it will happen, and we all know that the Moon is HUGE, much bigger than any asteroid or metorite out there, so the damage will really be catastrophic.

I think we should disintegrate the Moon. Get Jean Gray to do it. Get her very angry and she'll do it. Tell her she's flat-chested! NO! Tell her that the gravity from the moon is making her hair and boobs look flat! That'll work. Otherwise if she's busy, just nuke the hell out of it.

 

[Frank]

Is there a better idea?
Realistically we aren't allowed to use nuclear weapons in space because of radioactive fallout so we have no choice but to stick large laser weapons systems out into space.

If the meteor is big enough to be "extinction class", what would you do with a puny laser? There is no way at all we would be able to build lasers powerfull enough to have any impact against such a thing. Not that even our best nukes might make a dent.

So, don't worry about it! Because there is not a single thing we could do against it if it happened.