Capture and relocate?
What are the other five impossible things NASA are going to do before breakfast?
NASA's Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE) has sent back its first test pics in preparation for restarting its mission to map all the nearby asteroids. A patch of sky in the constellation Pisces snapped by NEOWISE The spacecraft has already done the most comprehensive survey to date of space rocks …
Even if they find something that is on a collision course with us, that has a 99.9% chance of ending life on earth they will never ever tell us.
Just imagine if we knew that in two weeks time the Earth will be destroyed.
It would be one long 14 day crazy, orgy, party, settling of old scores, crime and lawlessness and mayhem.
Then it misses by 3ft......
It would be one long 14 day crazy, orgy, party, settling of old scores, crime and lawlessness and mayhem.
I don't understand why this is a bad thing. Well, bad for those who've wronged others in their lives so much that those others would spend the last 2 weeks of their lives hunting them down and murdering them. Honestly though, I have a miserable time trying to feel sympathy for people like that.
I think that most people, facing the end, would choose the "14 day long crazy orgy party"...and I fail to see what's wrong with a 14 day long crazy orgy part under ANY circumstances. In fact, I'd say 99.5% of commenters on here are in desperate need of one. (Or several.)
Here's a tip : hardened criminal psychopath escapes prison with nothing to lose and two weeks to kill before everyone dies. What do think his party will be like ?
Do you really think he's going to stop at just going after people who have "wronged" him ?
I understand that a lot of people think that we will not be told. If I were in a position of power, I would most likely take exactly that decision. I also think that we'll find out anyway, because someone who knows will make a mistake and text/tweet/FBpost something that gives away the secret.
Governments are good at keeping secrets. People are terrible at it.
You're right. There is the chance that a hardened sociopath could do a big of damage on a local scale before someone - who also now lives in said lawless society - simply shoots him in the face.
It takes a good while for a society to crumble. I think you'd find that most people, given the news that they had only 14 days left to live would end up simply going through the motions of their regular life. They wouldn't know what to do and they'd be in shock.
I don't believe for a second there are enough crazy nutjobs to turn first world nations into Somalia in 2 weeks, nor do I think fear of the odd whacko going herp-a-derp on a local level is worth withholding the information from the public.
Firefox & adblock across all devices, don't see adverts except when using other people's computers or forced to use IE at work, and generally it's a bit off a surprise to see what the internet "really" looks like.
As for autoplay ads or indeed autoplay anything...seriously annoying, and surely stopped being used when web design became a profession?
Apparently Facebook didn't get that memo so am now no longer updating their app just in case.
I agree! But El Reg is not the only one with these ridiculous ads! I FINALLY installed AdBlock + to get rid of them! When are advertisers going to realize they need to keep us from puking to put up with their inane ads? I will set ABP to disable as soon as they realize this! I also want to keep a free internet, but I got my limits! >:(
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Running a spacecraft costs quite a lot of money: you need to assemble a team of flight engineers to actually make the thing go, plus a team of scientists to actually do something useful with it, plus equipment for both; and you also have to book and pay for time on the Deep Space Network to actually communicate with the satellite.
The DSN is heavily overbooked and if a satellite has completed its primary mission and therefore, in the eyes of the funders, paid for itself it's not uncommon to hibernate it so as to free up time and resources to manage another satellite.
It's not mentioned in the article and Wikipedia doesn't seem to know the answer either, for a change. Nor does it seem to make any sense. What's it, other funding priorities? Asteroid hunters' union calling a strike? Cosmic flux peak?
Paris 'cos, sleepy beauty, no idea, still searching...
Quick check on Wikipedia; source link to NEOWISE official homepage followed, hence to this press release giving the reason for the hibernation:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2011-031
To cut a long story short, they couldn't think of anything for NEOWISE to do after its extended primary mission was over, so put it to sleep until they could think of something.