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Space scientists and enthusiasts are today celebrating International Asteroid Day – with events in 190 countries and a 24-hour telethon with boffins from NASA, ESA, and JAXA plus assorted celebrities. The date, Friday, June 30, is no accident. It was picked to commemorate the largest meteorite explosion ever recorded in human …

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  1. Hans 1
    Boffin

    El Reg ?

    Despite a rash of scientifically inaccurate movies like Armageddon and Deep Impact, mankind has no way of stopping an approaching asteroid even if we spotted it in time.

    I could explain why this is a load of bollocks, but, I am just a commentard, so let me introduce Neil deGrasse Tyson:

    https://youtu.be/c3fxdEmfyOQ?t=24m57s

    Besides, since the USian administartions are so full of shit, the Russians have offered to help you ensure it misses us ... ;-)

    https://youtu.be/xaW4Ol3_M1o

    3 1 Reply
    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: El Reg ?

      I'm unconvinced we could get enough fuel up there to make a trajectory correction, even if there were 20y warnings. There are now too many Wars On Stuff to fight.

      3 0 Reply
      1. BillG
        Reply Icon
        Mushroom

        Re: El Reg ?

        Oh, 'come on, it's easy to deflect an asteroid! You and Miramani just run into the woods, find the temple obelisk, play the correct tones, then program the ancient computer to deflect the asteroid.

        I AM KIR-RAK!!!

        1 0 Reply
    2. annodomini2
      Reply Icon
      Coat

      Re: El Reg ?

      Oh I don't know, if they started a 'War on Asteroids' I'm sure someone would find the money down the back of the sofa.

      0 0 Reply
  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Killing the dinosaurs

    Maybe if the dinosaurs were still around humans would be even better. We'd have to have superior survival skills to have dealt with them and made them into endangered species by now.

    1 1 Reply
    1. Paul Kinsler
      Reply Icon

      Re: Killing the dinosaurs

      The Day the Dinosaurs Died:

      http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08r3xhf

      2 0 Reply
    2. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
      Reply Icon
      Coat

      Re: Killing the dinosaurs

      Just think how much more fun the Roman empire would have been with dinosaur cavalry?

      Or Hannibal crossing the Alps with T Rexes, then capturing Rome and saying, "I love it when a plan comes together."

      Sorry, but it is Friday...

      13 0 Reply
      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: the Roman empire [...] with dinosaur cavalry?

        "No, *I'm* Stegasaurus!"

        10 0 Reply
  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Awesome job title

    "Planetary Defense Officer".

    It's OK. I've got this, ma'am.

    4 0 Reply
    1. Chris G
      Reply Icon

      Re: Awesome job title

      Exactly my thought! The job should come with a personal X wing in the launch bay, armed with Asteroid killer beam weapons.

      0 0 Reply
      1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
        Reply Icon

        Re: Awesome job title

        I hope the uniform is stylish.

        Also, all photoshoots must be done from floor level looking up at the chin.

        4 0 Reply
  4. Alister

    Brian Cox, Brian May, Peter Gabriel and Chris Hadfield.

    Definitely the potential for an awesome band here, is "The Astroboffins" a good name?

    2 0 Reply
    1. sitta_europea Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      "Definitely the potential for an awesome band here ..."

      You mean, as opposed to any useful science education?

      2 0 Reply
      1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
        Reply Icon

        Are these people are aboard for massively increasing our nuclear power usage?

        Because you ain't gonna meet the asteroid with "renewable energy" sources.

        1 2 Reply
        1. Nolveys
          Reply Icon

          @Destroy All Monsters

          Because you ain't gonna meet the asteroid with "renewable energy" sources.

          You could probably figure out a global system using batteries and solar to crank out Slayer at volume eleven for "long enough".

          1 0 Reply
  5. Cuddles

    Meteor

    "Back then a suspected meteorite detonated over the Russian taiga"

    It's only a meteorite if it hits the ground. Exploding in the air makes it a meteor.

    8 0 Reply
    1. LesC
      Reply Icon
      Mushroom

      Re: Meteor

      .... or a bolide / fireball?

      Wouldn't Interstellar or Interplanetry Asteroid Day have been a better title???

      Also wouldn't evolution have taken a completely different route as the dinosaurs could have achieved intelligence (fire, wheel, what have you) after all you could achieve interplanetry space travel with dinosaurs in Simearth.

      Nuke as one of these large lumps of rock has the power of lots of them.

      0 0 Reply
      1. Tom Paine
        Reply Icon

        Re: Meteor

        Remembering dinosaurs were around for, what,.. of the order of 150x longer than humans have, so far....

        An occasionally enjoyable gedanken experimenting / daydream / way to get off to sleep is to ask yourself : posit a dino species that developed intelligence and something enough like opposable thumbs to give it human-like ability to manipulate the environment, make tools, etc. Give it a lifetime of 100,000 years (~10x human recorded history) and that it died out in a non-catastrophic way - ecological change causing a drying up of it's preferred food supply, say f'rinstance.

        What traces of that would we expect to find in the geological record?

        (Yes, this is really just a variant on the "Earth after humans" gedanken... sadly the only way to know will be to run the experiment and then let the aliens / successor intelligent species figure it out in 20m years. I suspect the seabed would be the place to look; uniquitous isotopes and ... layers of carbon... plastics.... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

        0 0 Reply
        1. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken
          Reply Icon

          Re: Meteor

          ... and a layer of shoes?

          1 0 Reply

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