I love how he points out all these neat craters in the Carribean basin but 65 million years ago the Carribean basin didn't exist, it was part of Pangea. There's half a crater shown in the picture so if it really is the dinosaur killer then there should be another half of the crater somewhere in North-Western Africa. I'm not saying it's not a crater, or does all the things that they say it did, but there are a lot of really obvious unanswered questions.
Plus it's like the 10th 'dinosaur killer' crater that has been discovered.
I heard this week a huge asteroid is passing Earth as close as 3 times the distance of the moon. However, this particular asteroid won't come any closer for another 500 years.
the entry is correct that the chicxulub crater is the 'accepted' cause of the K-T boundary... but like any good scientific theory, there are plenty of highly respected scientists who argue with it. The main argument isn't that the meteor impact happened, but that it wasn't severe enough to have caused the extinction of most life on earth in such a short period. Many argue against the "kicking up a dustcloud to cause a nuclear winter" theory.
i used to know a whole lot more on this subject. before i graduated college and lost most of my brain cells.
And I'm entirely comfortable playing the odds that it won't happen until such time as we are either sufficiently technologically advanced as to make dealing with it trivial, or have fucked ourselves over so badly that we can't do anything about it.
Exactly. At the moment, we have bigger and closer things to worry about than the probability that an piece of space rock will wipe us off the map. I'm far more concerned with humanity stupidity doing that.
It's not the risk that worries me - it's the stakes. Even the most insignificant risk level when compared with the complete eradication of all of humanity and our knowledge seems to me to be too much risk to take.
We're all renters. Something will take us out--I concur with bonisagus that it'll be some moron hitting some button somewhere well before a natural disaster.
There could be a global pandemic of a mutant flu strain a month from now, too, but I don't worry about that, either. Or a glitch in the system that leads to a nuclear ICBM exchange. I don't worry about stuff that has probabilities best measured in large negative exponents, no matter what the stakes. Especially when waiting a century will open up new options, and any large-scale effort today is more usefully directed elsewhere.
What risk? It's not like we are driving the planet around drunk at high rates of speed. The earth will go where it will go and the asteroids will do the same, if we happen to hit one that's too large well that just sucks but there's nothing that can be done about it.
Do you want to do like some crazy Sci-Fi movie and download all the world's knowledge onto a rocket and have it ready to blast off at a moment's notice incase something bad ever happens? Do you want to pay for something like that? I sure don't.
Just like the dinosaurs, if we get wiped out then something will come along and take our place. That's also assuming that there isn't already someone somewhere else gathering their own set of knowledge.
I agree that total nuclear winter is a lot more likely then getting hit by a space rock, and at least that's something we can deal with. You are stressing about something you have ABSOLUTELY no control over. Even if we manage to see something coming at us it'll hit us before we can do anything to stop it. Even if we have time we don't have the technology to either divert it or save enough of the human race and its knowledge to be a reasonable projecct.
You should live comfortably that if the earth does die all out knowledge is not lost, radio and television signals have been broadcast into the great wide unknown for decades and can be picked up by anyone with the minimal technology to do so. So even if the Earth goes boom episodes of MASH, I Love Lucy, and Law & Order will carry on our legacy.
Anything with a gravitational force strong enough or close enough to reach Earth would effect the tides. Since this asteroid is so far away and quite smaller than the moon I would say in this case no. But if a really dense one came by or one came really really close to the Earth (less than the distance to the moon) then it might have an affect for the few moments when the Earth came within its gravitational field.
From what I understand the gravity of an object would have more effect on the weather then it would on the water, it's easier to pull storm systems around then tons of water. Again, I don't think this particular asteriod is close enough to bother us even in that way.
I know we've been having some major storms come by us in NYC, but yesterday the East River was the highest I have even seen it. There was a very strange current, like the water was being pulled away from the ocean, not towards it.
Well it's be raining a lot in the area because of the hurricanes. The flooding is probably just due to increased river output which can come from quite a distance if the river connects to a lot of other smaller rivers.
There is also a lot of talk about a global natural shift or something like that. We have been having more and more natural disasters lately around the world, hurricane, floods, earthquakes, tornadoes, and eruptions have all increased.
Personally I think this sort of stuff is cyclical like ice ages. There are calm times and then like now their are very active times. I have no scientific reasoning for this, just gut feeling. It's possible that this could all be from global warming but it's possible it's 'normal' and humans just haven't been around to notice it before (or at least record it).
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ninetydegrees
no subject
on 2004-09-30 05:49 am (UTC)Plus it's like the 10th 'dinosaur killer' crater that has been discovered.
no subject
on 2004-09-30 05:55 am (UTC)200 Million!
on 2004-09-30 07:12 am (UTC)I heard this week a huge asteroid is passing Earth as close as 3 times the distance of the moon. However, this particular asteroid won't come any closer for another 500 years.
no subject
on 2004-09-30 10:06 am (UTC)i used to know a whole lot more on this subject. before i graduated college and lost most of my brain cells.
no subject
on 2004-09-30 06:52 am (UTC)So, either way, no point in worrying about it.
no subject
on 2004-09-30 07:03 am (UTC)no subject
on 2004-09-30 08:21 am (UTC)no subject
on 2004-09-30 08:31 am (UTC)And what makes 'our knowledge' so special?
no subject
on 2004-09-30 08:34 am (UTC)no subject
on 2004-09-30 08:40 am (UTC)Do you want to do like some crazy Sci-Fi movie and download all the world's knowledge onto a rocket and have it ready to blast off at a moment's notice incase something bad ever happens? Do you want to pay for something like that? I sure don't.
Just like the dinosaurs, if we get wiped out then something will come along and take our place. That's also assuming that there isn't already someone somewhere else gathering their own set of knowledge.
I agree that total nuclear winter is a lot more likely then getting hit by a space rock, and at least that's something we can deal with. You are stressing about something you have ABSOLUTELY no control over. Even if we manage to see something coming at us it'll hit us before we can do anything to stop it. Even if we have time we don't have the technology to either divert it or save enough of the human race and its knowledge to be a reasonable projecct.
You should live comfortably that if the earth does die all out knowledge is not lost, radio and television signals have been broadcast into the great wide unknown for decades and can be picked up by anyone with the minimal technology to do so. So even if the Earth goes boom episodes of MASH, I Love Lucy, and Law & Order will carry on our legacy.
no subject
on 2004-09-30 10:02 am (UTC)no subject
on 2004-09-30 10:17 am (UTC)From what I understand the gravity of an object would have more effect on the weather then it would on the water, it's easier to pull storm systems around then tons of water. Again, I don't think this particular asteriod is close enough to bother us even in that way.
no subject
on 2004-09-30 11:53 am (UTC)no subject
on 2004-09-30 12:14 pm (UTC)There is also a lot of talk about a global natural shift or something like that. We have been having more and more natural disasters lately around the world, hurricane, floods, earthquakes, tornadoes, and eruptions have all increased.
Personally I think this sort of stuff is cyclical like ice ages. There are calm times and then like now their are very active times. I have no scientific reasoning for this, just gut feeling. It's possible that this could all be from global warming but it's possible it's 'normal' and humans just haven't been around to notice it before (or at least record it).