BBC
At 7:17am on 30 June 1908, an immense explosion tore through the
forest of central Siberia.
Some 80 million trees were flattened over an area of 2,000 square km
(800 square miles) near the Tunguska River.
The blast was 1,000 times more powerful than the atomic bombs dropped
on Hiro****ma and Nagasaki and generated a shock wave that knocked
people to the ground 60km from the epicentre.
The cause was an asteroid or comet just a few tens of metres across
which detonated 5-10km above the ground.
Eyewitnesses recalled a brilliant fireball resembling a "flying star"
ploughing across the cloudless June sky at an oblique angle.
"The sky split in two and fire appeared high and wide over the forest.
The split in the sky grew larger, and the entire northern side was
covered with fire," one local remembered.
"At that moment I became so hot that I couldn't bear it, as if my
****rt was on fire… I wanted to tear off my ****rt and throw it down,
but then the sky slammed shut. A strong thump sounded, and I was
thrown a few yards."
This eyewitness was lucky, but an elderly hunter who was much closer
to the explosion died after being flung against a tree by the blast.
That the airburst did not cause more casualties was in large part due
to the remoteness of the area.
- - - - -
A 20+ megaton bomb from the skies ... but what happens if
such an object lands unexpectedly, anywhere, TODAY ???
Despite much talk, the worlds asteroid-detection capabilities
remain next to nil. Yes, if it's an old rock or comet, near
the plane of the solar system, that's been around a few times
then we won't get fooled. However anything NEW, fast, and
especially coming at us from an odd angle ... we'll know
about it WHEN it hits, not before.
Such an impact would surely be interpreted as a thermonuclear
attack unless it struck somewhere extremely remote - out in
the south pacific or in antarctica, FAR away from anything
deemed "strategic". Even then, with the major powers STILL
lingering in cold-war paranoia and Russias intel network
STILL 2nd-rate ...
As the world is over 2/3rds ocean, any hit is more likely
to be in the water. Will that prevent a fatal paranoid
reaction ? Nope. One of the earliest attack strategies
dreamed-up for thermonukes was to explode one or more
big'uns offshore - causing a tsunami that would produce
massive damage to enemy coastal cities and naval bases
over a broad area. More "bang for the buck" so to speak
plus less fallout over places you might want to take over.
As such, if a Tunguska-class object lands a couple
hundred miles or less off the coasts of N.America, western
europe or anywhere around Russia ... it will be "bombs away",
interpreted as the lead-off for a larger attack.
The asteroid could cause MASS casualties by itself, but
human paranoia can easily turn a kick in the cojones into
an extinction-threatening nuclear war. Why ? Because
people are STUPID, of course ... panicky little furless
monkeys SO terrified of losing territory that we'd
literally irradiate the planet to death to prevent losing
a single inch of "our turf". Besides, those other guys
may have bigger dicks .... steal our women-folk away ... !
Even more lame than our asteroid-detection capability is
our asteroid-INTERVENTION capability. Even if we DID see
it coming, even if we COULD agree not to nuke each other,
there's no plan to STOP the thing. Endless ARGUMENT of
course, but no plans, no coordination, no nothin'. The
big rock had better take a few decades to GET here ...
MAYBE we'd have a plan by then.
Nuke it directly ? Nuke it repeatedly, but off its surface ?
Solar sails ? Big rockets ? Pick a plan and you'll find a
bunch of authorities in favor of one, and rabidly opposed
to all the others. Deadlock ... the emphasis on "dead".
Are 50,000 tiny metors better than one big solid hit ?
Yes, actually ... spreads out the effects (and indeed
a lot of the fragments would miss us entirely) instead
of punching a massive spewing hole ... but opponents
of blasting a rock to fragments have staked out THEIR
influential square of intellectual territory - the
monkey syndrome again.
Well, there ARE meteors heading our way ... and the
courses are vulnerable to tiny chaotic influences
from gravity and patches of floating gas that they
won't be able to tell us for sure until it's way too
late. Maybe they'll just lie ... say everything's ok ...
as the pols hurredly dig their deep bunkers and stuff
'em with Swedish Bikini Team members ......
Of course THESE rocks would be an excellent TEST cases
for various intervention strategies. We've got a little
while, and the further away they are the less force needs
to be applied. Try the offset-nuke and head-on nuke
approaches ... deflect, or failing that, bash it.
known higher risk (>1:10,000) of impact:
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/risk/
name year
2006 QV89 2019
2008 JL3 2024
2004 XK3 2029
2008 CK70 2030
2007 DX40 2030
2008 CC71 2033
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