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Impact Hazards
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asteroid
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Impact Hazards
Tunguska Nostalgia
Tuguska Explosion: 100 Years Later, Still Unsolved
One hundred years ago today, June 30th, 1908, a great explosion rained Hell over Siberia, flattening 830 square miles of forest. Easily big enough to destroy a city, the 30-meter diameter space rock missed Moscow by about 4 hours. And it will happen again. But even as we track the objects headed our way in the next century, the flood of media hype over the centennial this past week shows there are still some major mysteries about the Russian blast that need solving. More »
Mad Martian Geology
Biggest Crater in the Solar System Found on Mars
For a small planet, Mars sure knows how to go big. It's about half as large as Earth, but it's got the hugest volcano in the solar system in the Arizona-sized Olympus Mons and the grandest of all canyons in the 7 kilometer-deep Vallis Marineris. Now it can add its coolest, most-braggable title: the Biggest Impact Crater in the Solar System. In a new study out in Nature, scientists have shown that Mars was probably hit by an asteroid the size of the Moon sometime in its early history, which left a crater the size of the planet's entire northern hemisphere. More »
Asteroid Avoidance
Asteroid Apocalypse Prevention Finally Gets Some Funding
With all the space rocks zipping by Earth these days, we're pretty much cruising for an interplanetary bruising. But NASA's line on the situation is, to paraphrase administrator Mike Griffin: "Forget about that whole thing; we're going back to the Moon! Yay!" Fortunately, the B612 Foundation is slightly more serious about making sure our civilization isn't snuffed out by an asteroid or comet. Headed by former astronaut Rusty Schweickart, the non-profit is kicking $50,000 to a group of experts at Jet Propulsion Labs to study the "gravity tractor" method of deflecting doomsday objects that are inbound for momma Earth. More »
chart porn
10 Scariest Asteroid Attacks on Earth: The Near Hits and Approaching Terrors
When it comes to comet impacts, the denizens of Earth may be living on borrowed time. Of course, comets are only about half the problem — there are plenty of asteroids whizzing around the inner solar system too — so we decided to have a look and see just how close modern society has come to destruction since 1900, and how close we're going to come over the next 100 years. The answers, provided in our nifty infographic, aren't reassuring. More »
panspermia
The Case Strengthens That Humans Actually Are from a Distant Planet
Life on Earth might actually be Martian — or Europan, or Titanese. Or maybe our ancestors came from outside our solar system, flung up from a distant planet (perhaps Caprica?) billions of years ago and migrated to Earth. It all sounds far-fetched, but new research suggests microbes can survive an asteroid impact big enough so send them into space, making panspermia — the idea that we're all really aliens at heart — a real possibility. More »
extinction prevention
Canada To Save Humans From Extinction
Well, it's about time. Asteroids hitting Earth has been a big problem for life this planet since forever, and at last governments around the world have been united in their inability to give a shit. And they did it without Gort the giant robot forcing them! Next year, the Canadian Space Agency will launch the Near Earth Object Surveillance Satellite (NEOSSat), the first space-borne asteroid hunting device ever made. More »
Astronomers were warning an asteroid (a comet?) was due to swerve closer to Earth than any large object since the comet that wiped out the dinosaurs — in just a few days. They were all set to issue an "emergency email" and start going on television telling people not to panic too much. At the last minute, they realized it was just the Russian space probe Rosetta, on a scheduled swing past Earth to use our gravity to gain speed. Oops!
