The first step to stopping a killer asteroid is to know when it is coming. I
mean, do you think the government is going to launch some warheads into space,
detonate them and say; we just stopped a killer asteroid! HURRAY!
"Asteroid orbits can be easily estimated once they’re spotted, potentially
giving years or even decades of advanced warning to civilization. Astronomers
already know of more than 400,000 asteroids, of which 6,500 pass near the Earth,
but there are many gaps and uncharted objects that could still pose a danger"
(Mann)
We have lots of satellites radar and are satellites are in space (duh) but
all of them are pointing down… Now then, that is one of the reasons we need more
satellites taking "pretty pictures" of space.
"Missile warning and air-defense radars run via software that ignores things
that aren’t planes and missiles. And the eyes of U.S. military satellites are
pointed the wrong way — down toward Earth. The Defense Support Program satellite
constellation, for instance, is looking for launches of things like
intercontinental ballistic missiles that threaten America, using infrared. But
the asteroid is cold until it enters the atmosphere " (Ackerman).
The B612 Foundation is raising money to protect Earth from asteroids. They
are making a satellite that will tell us if a deadly asteroid is coming.
"Sentinel is a space-based infrared (IR) survey mission [using a satellite]
to discover and catalog 90 percent of the asteroids larger than 140 meters in
Earth’s region of the solar system. The mission should also discover a
significant number of smaller asteroids down to a diameter of 30 meters"
("Sentinel").
This would be a good program to donate some money to because it looks
out for asteroids heading Earth's way.
mean, do you think the government is going to launch some warheads into space,
detonate them and say; we just stopped a killer asteroid! HURRAY!
"Asteroid orbits can be easily estimated once they’re spotted, potentially
giving years or even decades of advanced warning to civilization. Astronomers
already know of more than 400,000 asteroids, of which 6,500 pass near the Earth,
but there are many gaps and uncharted objects that could still pose a danger"
(Mann)
We have lots of satellites radar and are satellites are in space (duh) but
all of them are pointing down… Now then, that is one of the reasons we need more
satellites taking "pretty pictures" of space.
"Missile warning and air-defense radars run via software that ignores things
that aren’t planes and missiles. And the eyes of U.S. military satellites are
pointed the wrong way — down toward Earth. The Defense Support Program satellite
constellation, for instance, is looking for launches of things like
intercontinental ballistic missiles that threaten America, using infrared. But
the asteroid is cold until it enters the atmosphere " (Ackerman).
The B612 Foundation is raising money to protect Earth from asteroids. They
are making a satellite that will tell us if a deadly asteroid is coming.
"Sentinel is a space-based infrared (IR) survey mission [using a satellite]
to discover and catalog 90 percent of the asteroids larger than 140 meters in
Earth’s region of the solar system. The mission should also discover a
significant number of smaller asteroids down to a diameter of 30 meters"
("Sentinel").
This would be a good program to donate some money to because it looks
out for asteroids heading Earth's way.