40 seconds from air disaster

40 seconds from air disaster

The decaying orbit of a Russian satelite of a meteorite breaking up as it reenters the atmophere and missed a plane by 40 seconds both fore and aft. Conjecture that it was a Russian Satelite in the news prompted the question: is this a sign that the sky is going to be falling on our heads more and more often?

Decaying space junk - yes it is quite possible to plot its trajectory as it plummets into the atmophere. Remember Skylab? Space junk would be a hazard to airplanes if it was unpredictable, and meteorites (space rocks that do not completely get burned up by the atmosphere) are not predictable.

Here is a very short film (35 secs) of a spectacular space debris event in Colorado on January 4th 2007.



Here is a film of the Russian Satelinte coming down over a populated area and it seems to burn up on reenty.




There is planning afoot to prepare for a possible collision or brush with an asteroid (larger piece of rock, possibly similiar to what wiped out dinosaurs) in 2036 including an international competition. Asteroids have an orbital path that can be determined eventually by complex modelling, and maths on steroids.

Here is a fictional illustrative animation of a very large asteroid colliding with Earth. It is disturbing, but not very scientific. Needless to say, an object 1/10 of the size of this example would probably cause massive extermination of life.

Meteors are too numerous and too small to track, and meteor strikes are rare enough for it not to make large dents in Government budgets. Searching google for "meteor strikes" returns over a million references. Comparable to a search for "weapon strikes", and another for "vehicle strikes". The disturbing thing is, searching for "meteor strike death", "weapon strike death" and "vehicle strike death" gave similar results.

Does that mean that it is perhaps it is a more common problem than we are letting on? Perhaps not, as the vast majority of articles about "meteor strikes" are discussion on why the dinosaurs ended so suddenly. Extinction does concern the human race. Google and the intenet effectively have open a window on humanity in the world, and by so doing have created a world far braver than big brother ever imagined. We can all see anything. 1984 is so - 1984.

2084 will be much more in our own hands rather than some notion that a leader will control us.

Humanity is our strength. Openness simply reveals it.