Speaker 1: Kiota.
Speaker 2: I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a
Speaker 2: daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald.
Speaker 1: Warnings of a city killer.
Speaker 2: Asteroid hirshling towards Earth have been filling our news feeds
Speaker 2: over the last month. The space rock, dubbed twenty twenty
Speaker 2: four yr four had a three point one percent chance
Speaker 2: of hitting Earth in the year twenty thirty two. That
Speaker 2: made it one of the riskiest asteroids ever according to NASA,
Speaker 2: but they've since lowered their assessment again to zero point
Speaker 2: to eight percent. That hasn't stopped news of this asteroid
Speaker 2: sparking a social media and news obsession.
Speaker 1: Just the latest thing for people.
Speaker 2: To worry about in amongst wars, a bad economy and
Speaker 2: political uncertainty. So why are we so obsessed with doom
Speaker 2: scrull and is fixating on potential disasters bad for our health?
Speaker 2: Later we'll discuss that side of things with doctor Lisa Harrison,
Speaker 2: a lecturer in digital communications at Flinders University. But first
Speaker 2: on the Front Page, to put all your minds at ease,
Speaker 2: we're speaking to Joshua Alraki from Stardom. So, Joshua, what
Speaker 2: can you tell us about the twenty twenty four yr
Speaker 2: four and its discovery.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so this is a pretty it's a decently small
Speaker 3: asteroid in terms of asteroids. It was discovered late last
Speaker 3: year and we think it's about fifty to one hundred
Speaker 3: meters wide, so it's pretty small in terms of asteroids.
Speaker 3: But we've found that from kind of the first observations
Speaker 3: that there is a very slim chance that it could
Speaker 3: potentially impact Earth in twenty thirty two, but we don't
Speaker 3: quite know you and it's still very very small chance.
Speaker 2: So on a scale from say the asteroid that killed
Speaker 2: the dinosaurs to a loose pebble heading you win screen,
Speaker 2: what would be the effects of an asteroid this size
Speaker 2: hitting Earth?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I will stress first off that this
Speaker 3: asteroid is not an extinction level event. It is very small.
Speaker 3: You know, for example, the one that wiped out the
Speaker 3: dinosaurs was about ten kilometers across, so this is, you know,
Speaker 3: fifty tow one hundred meters, which is really really small
Speaker 3: in comparison. But in saying that, you know, these, that
Speaker 3: is big enough that it would cause damage if it
Speaker 3: were to impact their populated area, the air burst potentially
Speaker 3: if it exploded within the atmosphere could be quite catastrophic.
Speaker 3: We often rate these things on a kind of a
Speaker 3: nibertary scale we call the Terno scale in terms of
Speaker 3: asteroid impacts, with zero being no impact, in ten being catastrophic,
Speaker 3: and astronomers have put this at a three, so it's
Speaker 3: still quite low down on the list. You've also got
Speaker 3: to remember that, you know, as to where it falls
Speaker 3: on the Earth. I mean, most of the Earth is
Speaker 3: covered in oceans. That would basically kind of be the
Speaker 3: best case scenario if it did land over the oceans.
Speaker 3: A majority of our land mass, it's source so pretty unpopulated,
Speaker 3: so it's still a very slim chance that it would cause,
Speaker 3: you know, catastrophic damage to a city.
Speaker 2: Right, So how is that likelihood of hitting Earth actually calculated?
Speaker 3: It's basically from the orbital parameters. So when we discover
Speaker 3: this asteroid, we basically just track the part that it
Speaker 3: was taking around the Sun. But the problem with that
Speaker 3: is when we found it, the asteroid is actually moving
Speaker 3: away from the Earth, so we're only going to get
Speaker 3: a couple of months to observe it. So we're going
Speaker 3: to start to use some of our space telescopes, but
Speaker 3: we won't really get a lot of information until it
Speaker 3: comes closer to Earth, and that's actually in a few years,
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty eight, and that's when we're going to
Speaker 3: get much more information as to its path and its size,
Speaker 3: and if it is having a high chance of hitting Earth,
Speaker 3: as to where it's going to fall on the Earth.
Speaker 2: So when we kind of look at these percentages and
Speaker 2: you mentioned that scale of one to ten, we're out
Speaker 2: of three at the moment, at what point did we
Speaker 2: actually start getting worried.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it's astronomers have been saying, you know,
Speaker 3: it's definitely something to be aware of, but it's definitely
Speaker 3: not a point of concern at this point. We just
Speaker 3: don't have enough information to make those decisions just yet.
Speaker 3: But you know, saying that if we do decide that
Speaker 3: this asteroid is going to impact Earth, we think it's
Speaker 3: going to fall over a populated area, we do have
Speaker 3: technologies to mitigate that. We can actually deflect asteroids. NASA
Speaker 3: famously did a few years ago with their Dart mission
Speaker 3: where they actually smashed into one and can alter its
Speaker 3: course through space. So even if it were to have
Speaker 3: a chance of impacting we would be able to mitigate it.
Speaker 2: So I think I read somewhere that UK scientists have
Speaker 2: now stated that it may be too late to deflect
Speaker 2: the asteroid. I mean, how would we even go about
Speaker 2: deflecting something like that? Is it something like, I don't know, Armageddon,
Speaker 2: where we train a group of miners to become astronauts.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I think that would be a very
Speaker 3: exciting scenario, definitely, But yeah, I think realistically, you know,
Speaker 3: it would be an uncrued spacecraft. We definitely wouldn't be
Speaker 3: sending people, and it's definitely probably not as exciting as
Speaker 3: Bruce willis, you know, setting off a nuclear bomb, But
Speaker 3: it's more about impacting an asteroid a few years before
Speaker 3: it's on its course towards Earth and that basically nudges
Speaker 3: it slightly and that means that when it does come
Speaker 3: trust it wouldn't impact. But we would really only have
Speaker 3: a few years to get that done. So it really
Speaker 3: just depends if you know, space agencies are willing to
Speaker 3: put in the resource to do that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that resource, I mean it would probably cost
Speaker 2: a lot of money to do that, right, Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean you're talking hundreds of millions, if not billions
Speaker 3: of dollars for these space missions and you know, they
Speaker 3: take a lot time plan to build, to construct, and
Speaker 3: then to launch and send, and all of that isn't
Speaker 3: a guarantee. You know, things go wrong in space all
Speaker 3: the time. But again it's it's just such a small
Speaker 3: chance that yeah, I definitely wouldn't think that space agencies
Speaker 3: already are looking at those those missions.
Speaker 4: The right question to then ask is how much damage
Speaker 4: would it do? These things are moving very fast. The
Speaker 4: closing speeds are typically twenty thirty, forty fifty kilometers per second,
Speaker 4: so that's a lot of kinetic energy being brought in.
Speaker 4: A good rule of thumb here is that the creator
Speaker 4: would be about ten to twenty times the size of
Speaker 4: the asteroid itself, So ten to twenty times something that's
Speaker 4: almost to one hundred meters. We would leave a crater
Speaker 4: between one and two kilometers across. If it happens out
Speaker 4: in the middle of nowhere, then it's just an interesting crater.
Speaker 4: We have one of those in Arizona. It's called Meteor Crater.
Speaker 4: It's almost a mile across.
Speaker 1: How often do these kind of bodies show up on
Speaker 1: the radar?
Speaker 2: Have we had any near misses in recent history?
Speaker 5: We've had a few.
Speaker 3: I mean there was about a decade ago over Russia
Speaker 3: there was the Cheliobinksk media and that basically exploders and
Speaker 3: the earbursts basically caused massive amounts of damage. It broke windows,
Speaker 3: injured people. Miraculosi didn't tell anyone, but this kind of
Speaker 3: scary thing about that asteroids was only about twenty meters across,
Speaker 3: and we actually had no idea it was coming. It
Speaker 3: was just completely out of the blue. And there was
Speaker 3: also more famous events about one hundred years ago, the
Speaker 3: Tunguska events, where a similar size asteroids the one we're
Speaker 3: talking about, exploded over Siberia. So there are very few
Speaker 3: people around, but you know, it flattens true. You know,
Speaker 3: millions and millions of trees in the area, So these
Speaker 3: definitely happen. But I think it's also you know, it's
Speaker 3: a reminder that we are living in a time where
Speaker 3: we can detect these things for the most part, we
Speaker 3: can predict them ahead of time, and we do have
Speaker 3: technology to mitigate them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and a lot of countries around the world now
Speaker 2: have kind of space agencies or ministries of space or
Speaker 2: we've even got in New Zealand a Minister for space. Now,
Speaker 2: I guess it's a good thing that so many countries
Speaker 2: are so interested in space because if something like this happened,
Speaker 2: they can coordinate and speak to each other, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And that's kind of the benefit of space exploration
Speaker 3: is I think a lot of people don't think all
Speaker 3: the stuff that we do in space, often in terms
Speaker 3: of exploration discovery, but directly benefits us here on Earth
Speaker 3: with the technologies. But yeah, I mean, the space agencies
Speaker 3: nowadays are massive, and I think we're especially now more
Speaker 3: than ever, we're seeing a lot more collaboration between countries,
Speaker 3: which you know, it's really important because it's very expensive
Speaker 3: through these things. But when we get you know, the
Speaker 3: smartest of us working together, we can have these really
Speaker 3: incredible missions, you know, like NASA's Dart mission, you know,
Speaker 3: sending an asteroid on a different path in space, and
Speaker 3: that's you know, that's really incredible when you think about it.
Speaker 3: And I always say, you know, the asteroids, the dinosaurs
Speaker 3: went extinct because they didn't have a space program, right
Speaker 3: whereas we do. So it's quite cool when you think
Speaker 3: about the collaboration between countries.
Speaker 2: So that mission that you mentioned, I mean, that sounds
Speaker 2: pretty cool what happened there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it does sound something you know, orustraight out
Speaker 3: of the sci fi. But yeah, as they had their
Speaker 3: DART mission, which was double asteroid redirect and they basically
Speaker 3: just flew a spacecraft into an asteroid called dimorphous and
Speaker 3: the impact basically altered the course of that asteroid over time.
Speaker 3: And we studied it over a year and we found
Speaker 3: that it was wildly successful, and it basically taught us
Speaker 3: that you know, if we have the resources and the
Speaker 3: available time, if there is an asteroid that we do
Speaker 3: want to deflect, and we have enough time for it
Speaker 3: to actually be deflected, it is a possible and viable
Speaker 3: means of technology.
Speaker 2: So essentially, to wrap things up, I guess I'll stop
Speaker 2: preparing for the worst and finding a shelter somewhere to
Speaker 2: hide in.
Speaker 1: I mean, we're looking okay at the moment.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, we've actually we know where it would
Speaker 3: impact if it was it's kind of this very thin
Speaker 3: strip of land that kind of stretches kind of near
Speaker 3: the equator from Central America across to India. But it's
Speaker 3: a very small patch of land.
Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us, Joshua, No problem. This asteroid is
Speaker 2: just the latest doomsday scenario. That's got people talking, and
Speaker 2: the changing face of social media means it's more difficult
Speaker 2: to avoid than ever and we don't seem to be
Speaker 2: trying to ignore it anymore.
Speaker 1: We're now joined by doctor Lisa Harrison.
Speaker 2: Lisa, doom scrolling is a fairly new term and one
Speaker 2: that would probably confuse. It's a time traveling victorian, So
Speaker 2: how would you describe it?
Speaker 6: So doom scrolling is? I think it all started when
Speaker 6: marketers realize that clickbait would entice people to stay online,
Speaker 6: and we end up finding these topics that we just
Speaker 6: want to dive deeper into or we think we need to.
Speaker 6: And it's actually not a very healthy habit to get
Speaker 6: into because it's a very unconscious way of consuming media.
Speaker 2: And what is doom scrolling Because obviously the scrolling part
Speaker 2: comes from the likes of TikTok or Facebook or you're
Speaker 2: scrolling through your feed, right, But the doom part.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's where we tend to be focused on all
Speaker 6: the negative news that is out there. It tends to
Speaker 6: be news that we just don't have any control over either.
Speaker 6: But almost like when you know, we get stuck watching
Speaker 6: a car crash, you know, you want to know what's
Speaker 6: going on, but it's not necesscessarily really a positive experience.
Speaker 2: Well, the term doom scrolling was a word of the
Speaker 2: year in New Zealand back in twenty twenty, and it
Speaker 2: probably makes sense given how fixated people were on COVID.
Speaker 2: Then do you think our doom scrolling has gotten any
Speaker 2: better or worse since then?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 6: Look, I think there's just so much global negative, negative
Speaker 6: news out there. I think it's we're tending to get
Speaker 6: more sucked into it. But in saying that too, I
Speaker 6: think we're becoming more aware that it is a thing
Speaker 6: and it's getting talked about more, which is great.
Speaker 1: Is there anything new in this idea?
Speaker 2: I mean, people are currently fretting about a potential killer asteroid.
Speaker 2: But if you think about Y two K or twenty
Speaker 2: twelve and that whole Mayan calendar situation.
Speaker 5: Behold, the end is coming next year, That is, if
Speaker 5: you believe that kind of thing. Here's another tantalizing piece
Speaker 5: of evidence of bread discovered in the ancient Mayan ruins
Speaker 5: of Kaml Kalco that cites the year twenty twelve. That's
Speaker 5: the exact same year mentioned on a thirteen hundred year
Speaker 5: old tablet previously found among the nearby ruins of Tortuguero
Speaker 5: with this intriguing inscription.
Speaker 7: It's basically saying that the deity Bolon yok de Coups
Speaker 7: appears on December twenty first of twenty twelve, and he
Speaker 7: descends and he performs a ritual.
Speaker 2: Aren't we a bit predisposed to obsessing over the end
Speaker 2: of the world?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it tends to be.
Speaker 6: You know, those conspiracy theories tends to suck us in
Speaker 6: as well. I think the difference now though, is that
Speaker 6: there's just so much more access to these this kind
Speaker 6: of content and very diverse opinions and biases and things
Speaker 6: like that.
Speaker 2: What do you think some of the factors that are
Speaker 2: leading us to doom scroll more regularly.
Speaker 6: I think one of the major aspects of it is
Speaker 6: the platforms that these content are being shared on want
Speaker 6: to keep you on their platform. So we've we've got
Speaker 6: to fight the algorithms now as well. And you know,
Speaker 6: they're very sophisticated technology so that you know, they can
Speaker 6: make more money to advertisers the longer that we're on
Speaker 6: those platforms. So we've we've really got to be more
Speaker 6: mindful of what we are doing online.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the media often gets blamed for promoting
Speaker 2: negative news stories, perhaps fixating on crime reporting or the
Speaker 2: doom and gloom too much. This asteroid and the many
Speaker 2: many stories on it in the past month are probably
Speaker 2: a testament to that. Is the media still to blame
Speaker 2: when you have, like you said, so many social media
Speaker 2: apps now that are spreading people's reckons their own analysis,
Speaker 2: amplifying the panic I guess over these kind of things.
Speaker 6: Look, there's a part play in it, for sure, But
Speaker 6: you know, just as a marketing professional from industry, you know,
Speaker 6: one of the most important aspects of your marketing is
Speaker 6: understanding your audience, and and the audience is the you know,
Speaker 6: keeps clicking on these things, so you know, it just
Speaker 6: it's it's almost like it's a perfect storm. I think
Speaker 6: of marketing, media algorithms, digital consumption being you know, so huge,
Speaker 6: and we've got such a diverse what we've got diverse
Speaker 6: ways of accessing all this media and news as well.
Speaker 2: If people are worried about how bad their doom scrolling
Speaker 2: has become, what can they do to curb their habit.
Speaker 6: Look, there's there's a few tips. I think. Firstly, remembering
Speaker 6: that consuming media negative media is like having a bad
Speaker 6: diet and can cause anxiety when we don't keep it
Speaker 6: in check. But other things we need to think about
Speaker 6: connecting with people in real life and face to face
Speaker 6: and actually talking to your friend's family or co workers
Speaker 6: about some of this content online. And then it becomes
Speaker 6: a little bit of you start seeing the biases you know,
Speaker 6: and you see how different ways of looking and reflecting
Speaker 6: on these negative news items, but also just choosing one
Speaker 6: or two credible news sources or news articles that you like,
Speaker 6: topics that you like to engage in, and keeping check
Speaker 6: of the time that you spend online as well. I
Speaker 6: also recommend don't jump on your phone first thing in
Speaker 6: the morning or last thing at night. Those times are
Speaker 6: really precious to get ready for the day or get
Speaker 6: wined down from the day, and this doom scrolling is
Speaker 6: not a good habit to get into.
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us, Lisa.
Speaker 6: My pleasure, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: That's it for this episode of the Front Page. You
Speaker 2: can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage
Speaker 2: at enzidherld dot co dot nz.
Speaker 1: The Front Page is produced by Ethan.
Speaker 2: Sills and Richard Martin, who is also our sound engineer.
Speaker 1: I'm Chelsea Daniels.
Speaker 2: Subscribe to the front page on iHeartRadio or wherever you
Speaker 2: get your podcasts, and tune in tomorrow for another look
Speaker 2: behind the headlines.