Millions of years ago, before man or his predecessor ape
walked the planet, dinosaurs ruled the earth. They were enormous and fierce,
and these fearsome creatures’ reign was undisputed. No living creatures rose to
challenge them for dominance and they would still be the sole occupants of our
world were it not for a few rocks.
Yes, the most powerful creatures in existence, lords of the
planet, were obliterated from the face of the earth, relegated to illustrated
history books and occasional skeletal remains unearthed in archeological digs.
The proud dinosaurs, complacent in their arrogant conquest of this planet, paid
for their hubris when they were wiped out by meteors.
Space rocks are deserving of respect. They are fast. Asteroids
travel 15 miles per second. Meteors, asteroids’ smaller cousins, travel 100
time faster than a rifle bullet, up to 46 miles per second. The dinosaurs never
saw it coming.
Today, in unrelated events, an asteroid sideswiped the Earth
and a meteor struck the planet. Asteroid 2012 DA14 skimmed closer to our planet
than any other known asteroid in recorded history. The 55-foot-long,
130,000-ton asteroid came within Earth’s geosynchronous orbit. Our
geostationary satellites orbit the Earth 22,300 miles above the planet; Asteroid
2012 DA14 buzzed us, zooming by at only 17,100 miles above the ground. In space
terms, that’s a close shave. But there was no need to worry. You see, Asteroid
2012 DA14 has a name. Astronomers spotted it last year, named it, and tracked
it. In fact, scientists have studied this asteroid so extensively they can
predict its path for most of the 21st century. NASA has a space probe tracking
asteroids and international observatories send NASA's Minor Planet Center their
findings to add to its database of all known asteroids in our solar system. Had
Asteroid 2012 DA14 appeared on a trajectory to strike the Earth, we had the
time and the means to launch a man-made projectile that would nudge an asteroid
enough to make it miss us. Which is a good thing, because if an asteroid did hit the planet, it would strike with the force of a 1 million megaton bomb and
wipe out everything on Earth.
Meteors are another story. Being smaller, meteors weigh less
than asteroids, so unless we get struck by a meteor storm, a single meteor will
do limited damage. The one that hit Russia’s remote Ural mountains today weighed only 10 tons. Still, the shock waves from the sonic boom in its wake injured
1,000 people and damaged homes and businesses in the Chelyabinsk region. By the
time it had breached Earth’s atmosphere, the meteor’s speed had slowed to a
paltry 33,000 mph. But in space, it was much faster, traveling up to 46 miles
per second. A lot faster and a lot smaller than an asteroid. That’s why it
never had a name — we never saw it coming. Our space agencies are not set up to
detect meteors approaching Earth. We could do it; the technology exists. But our
government has not provided the funding required to build and calibrate the
equipment to do so.
Meteorites fall to Earth several times a year, but large
meteor crashes like the one in Russia are rare (It was the biggest and most destructive since the 1908 Tunguska, Siberia meteor crash). The government is gambling on that, so it can save its shekels for wars and tax
cuts for the wealthy. Of course, had that meteor struck New York City, Manhattan
would have been obliterated. Still, we are the dominant life on the planet, too
big to fall. We can afford to be parsimonious with our tax dollars.
Such hubris is worthy of the dinosaurs.
