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Speaker 1: Welcome Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, you welcome to Stuff

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Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and

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Speaker 1: I'm Joe McCormick. You know, we've been talking a lot

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Speaker 1: recently about you know, some perhaps more ambiguous risks to humanity,

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Speaker 1: but but not so much the ambiguity in this episode. Wait,

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Speaker 1: what are the ambiguous risks? Oh, you know we're talking

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Speaker 1: about like you know, you're getting talking about like social

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Speaker 1: media and how and how it's affecting the human condition

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Speaker 1: or you know, certainly in our episodes on psychedelics, you know,

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Speaker 1: we talked about some of the more ambiguous and even

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Speaker 1: more concrete threats facing humanity and to what extent some

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Speaker 1: commentators think that the psychedelic experience can prepare us for

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Speaker 1: those threats. Okay, so kind of vague possible psychic and

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Speaker 1: cultural threats, right, yeah, less less threats like a huge

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Speaker 1: rock hitting you. Right, because because we over good, what

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Speaker 1: we're gonna be talking about the day is certainly the

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Speaker 1: kind of threat that that a mushroom is not going

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Speaker 1: to be able to help us with. Right, So we

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Speaker 1: wanted to talk about an interesting, perhaps hair raising story

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Speaker 1: from recent Space News. So, just within the past couple

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Speaker 1: of weeks, Earth had a very close encounter and almost

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Speaker 1: perfectly timed intersection with the orbit of a fast moving

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Speaker 1: object from outer space. And the creepy and fascinating thing

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Speaker 1: about this is that this object came very close to

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Speaker 1: Earth and we had almost no forewarning that it was coming.

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Speaker 1: So what was this thing? Well, I actually first saw

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Speaker 1: it when Robert shared an article about it on on

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Speaker 1: social media. That's right, Yeah, there we go, determining the

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Speaker 1: topics of all conversation. Well, and the crazy thing about

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Speaker 1: it is that, you know, as we've discussed in the show,

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Speaker 1: and the the more extreme things get to know, the rise

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Speaker 1: to the surface and social media and especially right now,

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Speaker 1: it tends to be stuff related to politics. But then somehow, uh,

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Speaker 1: this one story breached the surface. It may have helped

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Speaker 1: that it had the word killer in the headline. So

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Speaker 1: this was an asteroid that is now officially called asteroid nineteen. Okay,

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Speaker 1: and that doesn't mean it's okay, that's just a you know,

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Speaker 1: that's the code assigned to it. I read it as

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Speaker 1: asteroid two thousand, nineteen, Okay, it's kind of like that.

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Speaker 1: So it was detected by astronomers in Brazil and the

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Speaker 1: United States before being confirmed by NASA JPL and on July.

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Speaker 1: It passed by Earth at a speed of about twenty

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Speaker 1: four kilometers per second, which is like fifty four thousand

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Speaker 1: miles per hour. Pretty fast. And what we want to

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Speaker 1: emphasize is it's already gone, okay, so we should emphasize

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Speaker 1: that at the beginning, this asteroid represents zero threat to

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Speaker 1: us on any meaningful time scale. It is passed, it's

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Speaker 1: on its way to other things. And the reason we're

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Speaker 1: talking about this is that I feel like this event

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Speaker 1: is instructive. It shows the real life and death importance

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Speaker 1: of astronomy in general and improving our capabilities for cataloging

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Speaker 1: near Earth objects more specifically. And it's also I think

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Speaker 1: an event that really reveals the part of you that

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Speaker 1: either leans towards the positive or the negative interpretation of things,

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Speaker 1: you know, the glass half full half empty kind of thing, right,

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Speaker 1: the near miss versus near hit. Yeah, and also reminded

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Speaker 1: of the old adage. You know, I don't know if

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Speaker 1: it's truly an adage, but the observation that you never

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Speaker 1: hear the one that has your name on it. You know,

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Speaker 1: generally talking about say, you know, a bullet in a military,

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Speaker 1: uh situation. It's like on the Sopranos, you know, you

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Speaker 1: never know the one that's coming for you, right. But

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Speaker 1: the thing is we are we are in the business

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Speaker 1: right now of trying to know the ones that have

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Speaker 1: our name on it, the the asteroids particularly that have

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Speaker 1: that that have Earth or possibly Earth printed on their side. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and it's always going to be a probabilistic thing when

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Speaker 1: we're looking to far out, so you wouldn't know for sure,

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Speaker 1: but you'd say, you know, we think there's a you know,

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Speaker 1: zero point whatever percent chance this has Earth on its name,

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Speaker 1: has Earth's name on it, or maybe has a chance

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Speaker 1: right yet to be clear. And we'll get into some

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Speaker 1: of the statistics here in a bit. But there there

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Speaker 1: are no asteroids out there right now that that Nassa

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Speaker 1: or anyone else is saying this is a definite collision course.

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Speaker 1: No no big ones, No big ones. So yeah, I mean,

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Speaker 1: obviously they are ones that are going to imbact Us

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Speaker 1: and with with with a little or no effect. But

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Speaker 1: in terms of like really big problematic asteroids, the ones

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Speaker 1: that are the ones that we know of, and it

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Speaker 1: is a you know, just a segment of the ones

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Speaker 1: that are out there. There are none that we are

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Speaker 1: like positive like, this is the one. This is the

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Speaker 1: one we have to act on right now, right now. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but this twenty nineteen, Okay, asteroids. So first of all,

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Speaker 1: the question we need to play the glass half full

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Speaker 1: half empty thing with Was it big or was it small? Well,

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Speaker 1: it was between we think about fifty seven and a

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Speaker 1: hundred and thirty meters in diameter, which is a hundred

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Speaker 1: and eighty seven to four hundred and twenty seven feet.

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Speaker 1: Is that big or is that small? Well, it depends

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Speaker 1: on what you compare it to the object that struck

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Speaker 1: the Earth sixty six million years ago, the impact that

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Speaker 1: most likely played a major role in the extinction of

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Speaker 1: the dinosaurs. That one was probably I've seen estimates of

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Speaker 1: ten to fifteen kilometers across. I've seen that people say

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Speaker 1: more recently, this might be an updated or more more

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Speaker 1: precise figure that it was like fifteen or sixteen kilometers across.

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Speaker 1: That's obviously a lot bigger. We're we're talking this object

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Speaker 1: that just went past us is a couple of orders

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Speaker 1: of magnitude smaller than that. So we're not talking about

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Speaker 1: like necessarily a full blown civilization buster. No no, no

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Speaker 1: extinction event level impact. Yeah. Unfortunately, astronomers believe that more

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Speaker 1: than nine percent of objects in this extinction event size

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Speaker 1: category category, the category of things on the scale of

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Speaker 1: the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs, uh, things like that,

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Speaker 1: more than nine percent in our orbital vicinity have already

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Speaker 1: been disc covered and cataloged by NASA and other observers

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Speaker 1: and space agencies because the bare ones are simply easier

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Speaker 1: to spot, right exactly, And so for the biggest of

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Speaker 1: the biggest, we're pretty sure we know where they are,

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Speaker 1: uh that, and that we would be able to predict

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Speaker 1: if they're headed our way, which is good, right, But

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Speaker 1: then again, you could compare it to something on the

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Speaker 1: other side. So the Chelly bents Comedia, which exploded in

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Speaker 1: the atmosphere over Russia in was only about twenty meters

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Speaker 1: in diameter, just twenty And this meteor was not even

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Speaker 1: large enough to reach the ground. It didn't hit the

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Speaker 1: surface of the Earth like most smaller objects entering our

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Speaker 1: atmosphere from space. It exploded in the atmosphere and what's

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Speaker 1: known as an air burst. And this this explosion injured

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Speaker 1: over a thousand people. I think it was close to people.

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Speaker 1: It damaged buildings, it collapsed roofs, it smashed windows in

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Speaker 1: this big elliptical impact zone stretched out for dozens of

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Speaker 1: kilometers um and and a lot of the damage and

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Speaker 1: human injuries from this air blast were due to like

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Speaker 1: blown out glass from windows hitting people. I should say.

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Speaker 1: The footage also, of course, was incredible and certainly certainly

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Speaker 1: makes you feel like a primate when you watch it.

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Speaker 1: You feel like an earth bound primate um that has

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Speaker 1: no control over the great fiery mass that is just

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Speaker 1: seared across the horizon. It's a it's a two thousand

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Speaker 1: one of space Odyssey monolith kind of thing. Yeah, you're like, well, okay,

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Speaker 1: should I worship that? Maybe? But so that one, the

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Speaker 1: one that caused all that damage, was just twenty wide.

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Speaker 1: This this one that just passed us was somewhere between

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Speaker 1: fifty seven and a hundred and thirty meters. Why that's

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Speaker 1: a good bit bigger. It's somewhere between an extinction event

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Speaker 1: level asteroid or object and you know, one of the

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Speaker 1: smaller ones like we've seen with Cheli Bensk. In fact,

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Speaker 1: the size of this thing that just passed us is

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Speaker 1: probably roughly comparable to the size of something we're gonna

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Speaker 1: talk about more in a bit, the meteor that exploded

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Speaker 1: over Siberia in nineteen o eight and the event known

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Speaker 1: as the Tunguska in impact. And like I said, well,

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Speaker 1: we'll come back to that later. But basically though, the

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Speaker 1: issue is it depends on where it hits. Y. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: the thing that just passed us. The point is that

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Speaker 1: it poses no threat to us. It's already gone. But

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Speaker 1: if it had hit Earth, that would be really scary

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Speaker 1: on the off chance that it came anywhere near a

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Speaker 1: populated area. And of course the location is important with

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Speaker 1: any of these. I mean, I've I've read arguments that

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Speaker 1: the chicks a lube impact, Like if it had hit uh,

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Speaker 1: if it had been a water impact as opposed to

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Speaker 1: a land impact, Um, you know, it would have made

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Speaker 1: some difference in what occurred. So that's that's going to

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Speaker 1: be a factor no matter what scale you're talking about here. Absolutely, yeah,

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Speaker 1: that that place a big role. Well, we'll talk more

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Speaker 1: about that as we go on. So uh So we

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Speaker 1: talked about the size, Another question is how close exactly

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Speaker 1: did it come to Earth? Because there are the simulations

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Speaker 1: that you can watch online. You should look this up. Actually,

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Speaker 1: that show like the orbital pathways of Earth and this

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Speaker 1: asteroid and as they sort of approach each other, as

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Speaker 1: the intersection of these two orbital pathways comes up, it'll

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Speaker 1: zoom in further and further for you. And there it

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Speaker 1: looks like they're just on a perfect collision course and

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Speaker 1: then they just miss at the last second. Now, what

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Speaker 1: what does that miss look like on distances that are

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Speaker 1: appreciable to us. The answer is it came within about

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Speaker 1: seventy three thousand kilometers or about forty five thousand miles

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Speaker 1: of Earth. So that sounds pretty far away, right, that's

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Speaker 1: at least few trips to Disneyland. But if you stay

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Speaker 1: zoomed out, like we were just talking about, looking at

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Speaker 1: looking at this path on like an Earth orbit scale,

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Speaker 1: the distance is something you can't even really see. It

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Speaker 1: passed inside the orbit of the Moon, and that's pretty close.

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Speaker 1: Like it is. Essentially you could you could say it

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Speaker 1: has passed within the realm of U, within the sphere

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Speaker 1: of of human culture, you know, like we have been

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Speaker 1: to the Moon and this thing has traversed the space

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Speaker 1: betwixt the two. Yeah, and it wasn't even in the

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Speaker 1: far side of the Moon circumference like in fact, twenty

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Speaker 1: nineteen okay, came within less than twenty percent of the

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Speaker 1: distance from the Earth to the Moon. It was pretty close.

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Speaker 1: According to a to a piece I was reading on

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Speaker 1: vox by Kelsey Piper, on average, about zero point five

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Speaker 1: percent of asteroids that come within this range of Earth

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Speaker 1: actually hit us. So that's that's a nice thing to consider, right.

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Speaker 1: That's on the other hand, the other ninety nine point

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Speaker 1: five percent within this range still pass us by, like

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Speaker 1: nineteen okay, did you know the vast majority are not

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Speaker 1: going to hit Earth? So that's good, right, But we

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Speaker 1: kind of must ask the question, what if an asteroid

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Speaker 1: of this size did hit Earth? What exactly would happen? Uh?

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Speaker 1: So I was reading an article by Liam Mannox of

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Speaker 1: the Sydney Morning Herald who interviewed the Swinburne University astronomer

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Speaker 1: Dr Alan Duffy, and Duffy said that an object of

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Speaker 1: this size would be what astronomers sometimes maybe maybe loqually

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Speaker 1: call a city killer. So it's not of a size

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Speaker 1: that would cause a mass extinction or potentially qualify as

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Speaker 1: like a planet killer. Its worst effects would probably be

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Speaker 1: local in the area around where it hit, and if

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Speaker 1: it had struck Earth. Duffy compared this hypothetical impact to

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Speaker 1: something like a large nuclear weapons strike. One of our

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Speaker 1: listeners on the Facebook discussion module that Stuff to Build

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Speaker 1: Your Mind discussion module Facebook group shared a like a

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Speaker 1: map tool where you can input your city and then

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Speaker 1: look at what would happen if various models of nuclear

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Speaker 1: weaponry hit your city and determine like how far the

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Speaker 1: danger the danger zone is, how you know, far the

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Speaker 1: the radiation radiation extends. It's a scary tool, yeah, but

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Speaker 1: it also just really drives home that most of these

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Speaker 1: these devices are very capable of destroying modern cities, or

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Speaker 1: at least taking such a sizeable and crucial chunk out

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Speaker 1: of them to effectively destroy it. And I mean so

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Speaker 1: this impact would have actually been bigger than the real

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Speaker 1: atomic weapons that we have seen deployed on cities in

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Speaker 1: human history. According to Duffy, this impact, if it had

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Speaker 1: hit Earth, would have hit with over quote thirty times

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Speaker 1: the energy of the atomic blast at Hiroshima. And so

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Speaker 1: that you might be wondering, Okay, if you don't usually

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Speaker 1: think about these things, how would it have that much energy?

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Speaker 1: It's not a bomb, right, It's just a rock. Why

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Speaker 1: would it act like a bomb that explodes? Um. So

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Speaker 1: what you have to remember is that the the energy

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Speaker 1: released upon an impact with Earth's surface is a product

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Speaker 1: of the mass and velocity of the falling object. Now, normally,

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Speaker 1: when objects like a chunk of rock fall to the ground,

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Speaker 1: they don't behave like a bomb because they're relatively light

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Speaker 1: and they're relatively slow. So this, this asteroid, would be

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Speaker 1: a falling object of a size and a speed that

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Speaker 1: we never encounter in normal life in Earth's atmosphere. Something

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Speaker 1: you know, maybe a hundred meters across, like a giant

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Speaker 1: boulder or a chunk of a mountainside. Things that big

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Speaker 1: don't usually fall to begin with, I mean, except maybe

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Speaker 1: like huge airplanes. Uh. And then it would be traveling

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Speaker 1: at twenty four kilometers per second, which is more than

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Speaker 1: twenty times the speed of your average shooting bullet. Yeah, exactly.

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Speaker 1: And so once you multiply those things together, that mass

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Speaker 1: and that velocity, and it also matters, of course the

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Speaker 1: angle at which it enters the atmosphere hits the ground.

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Speaker 1: But once you build up these levels of kinetic energy,

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Speaker 1: any normal falling object like a huge chunk of rock

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Speaker 1: or metal as you would find in the case of

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Speaker 1: an asteroid, essentially becomes a bomb upon impact. And this

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Speaker 1: is a fact we've touched on in some of our

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Speaker 1: more science fiction ety episodes where we've talked about about

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Speaker 1: how if you simply had orbital superiority over a planet,

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Speaker 1: this planet or another planet that had occupants, just by

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Speaker 1: virtue of having orbit, uh an orbital position, you could

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Speaker 1: drop anything. You would not need to drop a bomb

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Speaker 1: from that height. If you could drop just a big

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Speaker 1: piece of metal or rock, et cetera, then you already

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Speaker 1: you have a tremendous weapon at your disposal. And this

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Speaker 1: is where we get the you know, the term rods

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Speaker 1: from god kinetic energy kannetic kinetic energy weapons would just

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Speaker 1: be a matter of just drop anything from up there

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Speaker 1: and it can destroy like nothing else. Yeah, it's scary.

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Speaker 1: And now, on the other hand, uh, we want to

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Speaker 1: remember throughout this episode to not be alarmist and not

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Speaker 1: get people to worked up. Now, first of all, this asteroid,

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Speaker 1: like we said, it already missed us. It's on its way.

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Speaker 1: About things like this in general, it really does matter

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Speaker 1: where it hits. So fortunately in this scenario, the majority

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Speaker 1: of Earth's humans are actually squeezed into a fairly small

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Speaker 1: subsection of Earth's surface, So chances are that even if

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Speaker 1: an asteroid like this were to hit Earth, it would

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Speaker 1: probably strike in the ocean. Now that could have negative

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Speaker 1: consequences depending on where it happens, but but definitely better

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Speaker 1: than a hitting u like you know, land, yeah, populated

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Speaker 1: area especially yeah uh. And if it did strike on land,

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Speaker 1: it would probably most likely hit in a rural, less

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Speaker 1: populated area. Now, not like that would be okay, but

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Speaker 1: that would be you know, obviously fewer casualties than it

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Speaker 1: hitting one of these smaller subsections of Earth's surface where

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Speaker 1: there are a lot of people. Now, small objects from

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Speaker 1: space passed by Earth and inter Earth's atmosphere all the time.

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Speaker 1: What's interesting about this asteroid was the combination of its

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Speaker 1: size and how close it passed. Apparently a few dozen

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Speaker 1: smaller objects like less than twelve meters in diameter passed

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Speaker 1: within the orbit of the Moon every year, and according

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Speaker 1: to one article I was reading, objects of about the

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Speaker 1: size of twenty nineteen okay, only passed by this close

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Speaker 1: to Earth roughly once every ten years. So we just

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Speaker 1: had like a decade event and that's generally our way

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Speaker 1: of understanding these these these asteroids we generally talk about

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Speaker 1: like the frequency of their occurrence. Is this a once

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Speaker 1: in a decade, Is this a once in a lifetime?

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Speaker 1: Is this, you know, once in a thousand years or more?

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Speaker 1: That's right, because all these things we think of across

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Speaker 1: time scales in in terms of probability. Right, you know,

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Speaker 1: things that are unlikely to happen any given year become

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Speaker 1: near certainties at a certain time scale. Right. And of course,

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Speaker 1: these devastating impacts of you know, of of you know,

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Speaker 1: from prehistoric times and uh, you know, they tend to

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Speaker 1: leave of mark. You can tell that they occurred, and

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Speaker 1: we can extrapolate the kind of damage that that resonated

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Speaker 1: exactly right. So to come back to another thing we

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Speaker 1: we mentioned earlier, we mentioned that this thing snuck up, right,

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Speaker 1: we seemed to come out of nowhere. People astronomers did

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Speaker 1: not detect it until just days before its arrival. And

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Speaker 1: that's ultimately the most sobering thing about it. Is not

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Speaker 1: that that that asteroids like this exists, or that they

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Speaker 1: that they they reached these sizes or or passed in

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Speaker 1: this proximity, but that we just didn't see it coming,

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Speaker 1: and then it was gone like that, just passed us

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Speaker 1: in the night. Then we realized how close we came.

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Speaker 1: So the question is why. There are a couple of

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Speaker 1: reasons here. One is that it was relatively small and faint. Obviously,

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Speaker 1: it's easier to use our telescopes to pick up and

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Speaker 1: track near Earth objects that are larger and reflect more light.

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Speaker 1: Another reason is that it came generally from the direction

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Speaker 1: of the Sun, which makes it harder to see because

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Speaker 1: of the glare in the background. Another reason it was

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Speaker 1: hard to pick up was that it was traveling very fast.

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Speaker 1: It makes it harder to detect. Other asteroids recently passing

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Speaker 1: by Earth have been slower. According to an article I

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Speaker 1: was reading by Alison Chew in the Washington Post, most

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Speaker 1: of the recent asteroids passing by Earth have been between

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Speaker 1: four and nineteen kilometers per second. Remember again, this one

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Speaker 1: was booking at twenty four kilometers per second, which is

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Speaker 1: very fast, which also, of course, potentially means that if

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Speaker 1: it had hit Earth, the impact would have been more

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Speaker 1: powerful because it's going faster. Next, the shape of its

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Speaker 1: orbit made it difficult to detect. Nineteen Okay had a

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Speaker 1: very elliptical orbit, meaning it was not roughly circular like

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Speaker 1: a lot of the orbit of a lot of things,

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Speaker 1: most of the planets, it had an oblong oval shape.

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Speaker 1: So this asteroid, as it travels around the Sun, sometimes

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Speaker 1: it comes very close, like within the orbit of Venus,

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Speaker 1: and other times it gets very far away, out beyond

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Speaker 1: the orbit of Mars. This also made it more difficult

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Speaker 1: to detect. And so if you add all this up,

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Speaker 1: you've got this small, fast moving object that's relatively faint

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Speaker 1: out there orbiting the Sun, and then suddenly, within maybe

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Speaker 1: just a couple of weeks before it passes us, it

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Speaker 1: becomes bright enough to see, and then other people have

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Speaker 1: to see it and confirm it. Uh, somebody's got to

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Speaker 1: be looking at the right place at the right time

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Speaker 1: in the first place to see it. It's not easy.

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Speaker 1: Things like this really can just sneak up on us,

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Speaker 1: and scientists don't necessarily always have fore warning. So this

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Speaker 1: kind of serves as a reminder that our orbital neighborhood

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Speaker 1: is not a void. Space is not just avoid is

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Speaker 1: full of rocks and comets and stuff, and that while

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Speaker 1: our astronomers do a really admirable job cataloging near Earth

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Speaker 1: objects with the tools available to them. Objects of really

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Speaker 1: frightening size can still creep up on us in ways

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Speaker 1: that give us only days or even hours of warning,

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Speaker 1: or maybe no warning at all. Speaking to the Sydney

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Speaker 1: Morning Herald, Australian National University astronomer Dr Brad Tucker said

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Speaker 1: that it is completely possible that objects of comparable size,

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Speaker 1: objects about the size of twenty nineteen okay, passed by

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Speaker 1: us like this and we never detect them at all.

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Speaker 1: Sometimes they just go right by and no, no human

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Speaker 1: is any the wiser. All right, well, and that's sobering. Note.

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Speaker 1: We're going to take a quick break, but when we

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Speaker 1: come back, we will discuss what an asteroid of this

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Speaker 1: size would do if it actually hit us. Thank alright,

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Speaker 1: we're back, all right. So we're talking about the idea

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Speaker 1: of the asteroid that just recently passed the Earth within

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Speaker 1: the past few weeks nineteen okay, which again zero risk

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Speaker 1: to us now it's gone, you know, But we're thinking

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Speaker 1: about what an asteroid of this size, you know, roughly

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Speaker 1: this size would do if were to be you know,

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Speaker 1: the zero point five percent of asteroids that come within

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Speaker 1: this range that actually do hit Earth. Uh, we know

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Speaker 1: that an impact from a large enough asteroid can be

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Speaker 1: devastating on a planetary scale, like space impacts have contributed

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Speaker 1: to mass extinctions in Earth history, and of course we

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Speaker 1: know that the main theory explaining the the kt extinction

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Speaker 1: or the KPg extinction was a theory involving a space impact,

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Speaker 1: and of course that this was the extinction event that

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Speaker 1: killed the dinosaurs about sixty six million years ago. It's

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Speaker 1: the third greatest extinction event in Earth history. The basic

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Speaker 1: details are probably familiar to you at this point, but

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Speaker 1: a commeter asteroid some bulllied from space hit the Earth

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Speaker 1: in what is now the Yucatan Peninsula was probably I've

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Speaker 1: seen estimates, uh. I think maybe the older estimates are

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Speaker 1: that it was ten to fifteen kilometers in diameter. More recently,

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Speaker 1: I think I've seen people saying sixteen kilometers in diameter

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Speaker 1: is a huge object, you know, measured on a scale

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Speaker 1: of miles or kilometers, And an object of this size

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Speaker 1: impacting Earth at orbital speed is not just a collision.

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Speaker 1: It is, as we were talking about earlier, a detonation.

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Speaker 1: It releases a blast of energy equivalent to millions of

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Speaker 1: nuclear warheads all exploding at the same time, and things

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Speaker 1: on this scale hitting the Earth are especially scary because

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Speaker 1: they're not just threatening to organisms living in the local

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Speaker 1: area right that they can have planet scale effects, like

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Speaker 1: the leading theory about the cause of the KPg extinction

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Speaker 1: is that this impact happened. This bowled from space hit

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Speaker 1: the Earth, and it threw up so much dust and

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Speaker 1: debris into the atmosphere that it blocked out the sun

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Speaker 1: for perhaps months, preventing photosynthesis, killing off huge numbers of

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Speaker 1: plants and photosynthesizing organisms, which of course cut off food

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Speaker 1: sources for larger animals. And more than three quarters of

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Speaker 1: Earth species are believed to have been completely wiped out

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Speaker 1: in this event. But there's good news. Scientists now think

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Speaker 1: that if there are asteroids of that size on any

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Speaker 1: kind of likely collision course with Earth, we would very

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Speaker 1: very likely already know about them. It's not a sure thing,

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Speaker 1: but we would really probably know because, like I said,

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Speaker 1: we've we've cataloged more than nine we think of asteroids

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Speaker 1: that could be of this size in our orbital neighborhood.

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Speaker 1: And we're always trying to improve our near Earth object

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Speaker 1: detection and mapping capabilities, And this is an astronomy priority

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Speaker 1: of species level importance. Keep watching the skies. But objects

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Speaker 1: on the scale of the one that just passed us.

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Speaker 1: Remember it's not even close to as big as that one.

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Speaker 1: But objects on this scale are trickier. They're more difficult

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Speaker 1: to be sure about because they're smaller. We also have

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Speaker 1: less confidence in our ability to detect them ahead of time.

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Speaker 1: So what would happen if an object roughly on the

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Speaker 1: scale of twenty nineteen okay, were to hit the earth? Well,

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Speaker 1: it turns out we actually have a pretty close analogy

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Speaker 1: from twentieth century history, which we alluded to earlier, and

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Speaker 1: that is the Tongue event. Robert. For my money, this

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Speaker 1: is one of the most darkly fascinating events of the

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Speaker 1: last few hundred years. I think, yeah, they're there, you know,

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Speaker 1: it's one of one of these stories. It's certainly it's

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Speaker 1: given the fact that it did not decimate a major

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Speaker 1: center of population, uh makes it something that doesn't feel,

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Speaker 1: you know, googlesh to to look at. But it's it's

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Speaker 1: it doesn't have this kind of mysterious quality to it.

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Speaker 1: It's almost like it's like a warning shot from the gods.

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Speaker 1: It is also strangely kind of a magnet for cranky theories.

431
00:23:33,160 --> 00:23:35,359
Speaker 1: It really attracts, you know, people who want to believe

432
00:23:35,440 --> 00:23:37,560
Speaker 1: that like a sudden black hole or a bit of

433
00:23:37,600 --> 00:23:40,600
Speaker 1: anti matter appeared and caused it, or that it was

434
00:23:40,720 --> 00:23:43,439
Speaker 1: UFOs or some kind of science fiction, you know, like

435
00:23:43,520 --> 00:23:47,520
Speaker 1: Tesla experiment or something. I've seen those various conspiracy theories

436
00:23:47,560 --> 00:23:50,120
Speaker 1: and whatnot. I'm sorry for repeating them, because those things

437
00:23:50,160 --> 00:23:52,720
Speaker 1: are not correct. I mean, we're positive this was a

438
00:23:52,720 --> 00:23:55,679
Speaker 1: space impact. So what happened, Well, on the morning of

439
00:23:55,800 --> 00:23:59,639
Speaker 1: June thirtie, nineteen oh eight, okay, nineteen o eight, and

440
00:24:00,080 --> 00:24:03,639
Speaker 1: checked from space, Probably some kind of asteroid entered Earth's

441
00:24:03,680 --> 00:24:08,120
Speaker 1: atmosphere and possibly hit the ground, but more likely exploded

442
00:24:08,160 --> 00:24:10,679
Speaker 1: in the air at an altitude of about five to

443
00:24:10,720 --> 00:24:15,080
Speaker 1: ten kilometers over an area of eastern Siberia around the

444
00:24:15,119 --> 00:24:18,760
Speaker 1: stony Tunguska River. And this is an area of extremely

445
00:24:18,880 --> 00:24:22,320
Speaker 1: sparsely populated wilderness. There's not a lot of people, not

446
00:24:22,400 --> 00:24:25,719
Speaker 1: a lot of population density out there, and this explosion

447
00:24:25,920 --> 00:24:30,080
Speaker 1: is hard for us to imagine. It annihilated roughly two

448
00:24:30,119 --> 00:24:34,480
Speaker 1: thousand square kilometers of forest land, leaving trees flattened or

449
00:24:34,520 --> 00:24:37,840
Speaker 1: stripped of all branches. The photos that exist of this

450
00:24:37,960 --> 00:24:41,520
Speaker 1: damaged area look like a nuclear test. Site. The forest

451
00:24:41,640 --> 00:24:45,640
Speaker 1: is just shredded and pancaked, and there actually were Despite

452
00:24:45,680 --> 00:24:49,800
Speaker 1: how sparsely populated this area was, there were some contemporaneous

453
00:24:49,800 --> 00:24:53,040
Speaker 1: witnesses who were fairly close. And by fairly close, I

454
00:24:53,080 --> 00:24:57,560
Speaker 1: mean within dozens of miles. Uh So, I want to

455
00:24:57,600 --> 00:25:01,159
Speaker 1: read one contemporaneous account from a witness named S. B. Simonov,

456
00:25:01,600 --> 00:25:04,399
Speaker 1: who lived in a place called Vanavara, which was about

457
00:25:04,600 --> 00:25:08,680
Speaker 1: sixty kilometers south southeast from the epicenter of the blast side.

458
00:25:09,359 --> 00:25:14,840
Speaker 1: Remember this is sixty kilometers away. Here's how his account goes.

459
00:25:16,440 --> 00:25:18,360
Speaker 1: I was sitting on the porch of the house at

460
00:25:18,359 --> 00:25:21,520
Speaker 1: the trading station of Vena Vara at breakfast time, and

461
00:25:21,600 --> 00:25:24,800
Speaker 1: looking towards the north. I had just raised my axe

462
00:25:24,880 --> 00:25:27,719
Speaker 1: to hoop a cask, when suddenly, in the north, above

463
00:25:27,800 --> 00:25:32,960
Speaker 1: vassili Iliatch own cools Tunguska Road, the sky split in two,

464
00:25:33,280 --> 00:25:36,159
Speaker 1: and high above the forest, the whole northern part of

465
00:25:36,200 --> 00:25:39,719
Speaker 1: the sky appeared to be covered with fire. At that moment,

466
00:25:39,920 --> 00:25:42,879
Speaker 1: I felt great heat, as if my shirt had caught fire.

467
00:25:43,240 --> 00:25:46,159
Speaker 1: This heat came from the north side. I wanted to

468
00:25:46,160 --> 00:25:48,520
Speaker 1: pull off my shirt and throw it away, but at

469
00:25:48,560 --> 00:25:50,960
Speaker 1: that moment there was a bang in the sky, and

470
00:25:51,040 --> 00:25:54,000
Speaker 1: a mighty crash was heard. I was thrown onto the

471
00:25:54,040 --> 00:25:57,080
Speaker 1: ground about five and a half meters away from the porch,

472
00:25:57,480 --> 00:26:00,760
Speaker 1: and for a moment I lost consciousness. My wife ran

473
00:26:00,800 --> 00:26:03,520
Speaker 1: out and carried me into the hut. The crash was

474
00:26:03,600 --> 00:26:06,919
Speaker 1: followed by noise like stones falling from the sky or

475
00:26:07,040 --> 00:26:10,119
Speaker 1: guns firing. The earth trembled, and when I lay on

476
00:26:10,160 --> 00:26:12,879
Speaker 1: the ground, I covered my head because I was afraid

477
00:26:12,960 --> 00:26:16,280
Speaker 1: stones might hit it. At the moment when the sky opened,

478
00:26:16,400 --> 00:26:19,240
Speaker 1: a hot wind, as from a cannon, blew past the

479
00:26:19,320 --> 00:26:21,879
Speaker 1: huts from the north. It left its mark on the

480
00:26:21,920 --> 00:26:25,960
Speaker 1: ground in the form of little paths. It damaged onion plants.

481
00:26:26,359 --> 00:26:28,880
Speaker 1: Later it turned out that many panes in the windows

482
00:26:28,880 --> 00:26:31,520
Speaker 1: had been blown out, and the iron hasp in the

483
00:26:31,600 --> 00:26:34,920
Speaker 1: door of the barn had been broken. When the fire appeared,

484
00:26:35,000 --> 00:26:38,320
Speaker 1: I saw Kosolopov, who was working near the window of

485
00:26:38,359 --> 00:26:40,960
Speaker 1: the house, sit down on the ground, seize his head

486
00:26:41,000 --> 00:26:43,760
Speaker 1: with both hands, and then run into the hut sixty

487
00:26:43,800 --> 00:26:47,800
Speaker 1: kilometers away. And and and this was again this was

488
00:26:49,040 --> 00:26:52,639
Speaker 1: like to what extent I mean today, if you saw that,

489
00:26:52,760 --> 00:26:56,400
Speaker 1: you would your your mind would instantly turn to nuclear weapons,

490
00:26:56,880 --> 00:27:00,520
Speaker 1: you know. But but there were no nuclear but there

491
00:27:00,640 --> 00:27:04,040
Speaker 1: was nothing on the human scale that could, uh, they

492
00:27:04,040 --> 00:27:06,960
Speaker 1: could explain what he was witnessing. I mean, you're you're

493
00:27:07,040 --> 00:27:09,520
Speaker 1: left to, you know, astronomical explanations if you had privy

494
00:27:09,520 --> 00:27:13,560
Speaker 1: to them. Otherwise it's just purely supernatural destruction, exactly. Well.

495
00:27:13,600 --> 00:27:15,800
Speaker 1: Some I have read reports that some of the native

496
00:27:15,840 --> 00:27:18,399
Speaker 1: Siberian peoples of the region of the known as the

497
00:27:18,440 --> 00:27:22,520
Speaker 1: Evenki tribes or the Tung people, believed that the Tunguska

498
00:27:22,640 --> 00:27:25,479
Speaker 1: impact was the work of a god named Aga Dy

499
00:27:25,640 --> 00:27:28,640
Speaker 1: who's the god of thunder and lightning. Though I've also

500
00:27:28,680 --> 00:27:31,880
Speaker 1: seen ody described as these believe these creatures that were

501
00:27:31,920 --> 00:27:37,040
Speaker 1: like metal birds of thunder and lightning. Yeah. Other witnesses

502
00:27:38,000 --> 00:27:41,520
Speaker 1: and generally describe having seen like a blue white streak

503
00:27:41,560 --> 00:27:44,119
Speaker 1: in the sky, followed by what appeared to be this

504
00:27:44,359 --> 00:27:48,960
Speaker 1: enormous fire consuming the whole sky, and then this gigantic

505
00:27:49,040 --> 00:27:53,000
Speaker 1: column of black smoke and loud blasts and crashing noises

506
00:27:53,040 --> 00:27:56,840
Speaker 1: booming over the land. The air blast was picked up

507
00:27:56,880 --> 00:28:00,520
Speaker 1: by meteorological equipment really far away, like more and six

508
00:28:00,600 --> 00:28:05,200
Speaker 1: thousand kilometers away in England, and reportedly in the nights

509
00:28:05,280 --> 00:28:08,240
Speaker 1: following the explosion, and I'm not sure this story is true,

510
00:28:08,240 --> 00:28:11,240
Speaker 1: but this is just an anecdote repeated through history, may

511
00:28:11,320 --> 00:28:15,440
Speaker 1: may or may not be true. Supposedly, and the sky

512
00:28:15,680 --> 00:28:18,600
Speaker 1: remained bright over parts of Europe and Asia in the

513
00:28:18,640 --> 00:28:21,840
Speaker 1: following nights and uh and according to this anecdote, it

514
00:28:21,880 --> 00:28:24,320
Speaker 1: was so bright that you could stand outside at night

515
00:28:24,359 --> 00:28:26,960
Speaker 1: and read a newspaper by the light that was still

516
00:28:27,000 --> 00:28:30,760
Speaker 1: glowing in the sky. The blast triggered fires that burned

517
00:28:30,760 --> 00:28:35,920
Speaker 1: trees tens of kilometers away. Amazingly, despite how destructive this

518
00:28:35,960 --> 00:28:39,520
Speaker 1: blast was, I've read the most recent research on it

519
00:28:39,560 --> 00:28:43,320
Speaker 1: has found evidence of only three reported human casualties from

520
00:28:43,320 --> 00:28:46,400
Speaker 1: the impact. And this is apparently just sheer luck, you know,

521
00:28:46,560 --> 00:28:48,800
Speaker 1: because it was out there where very few people live,

522
00:28:48,920 --> 00:28:52,960
Speaker 1: in extremely sparse wilderness. If it had struck over Beijing

523
00:28:53,160 --> 00:28:55,480
Speaker 1: or London, it would have been much like a city

524
00:28:55,520 --> 00:28:57,560
Speaker 1: getting hit with a nuclear weapon and probably would have

525
00:28:57,640 --> 00:28:59,680
Speaker 1: killed millions. Yeah, and I mean of it, it it hid

526
00:28:59,720 --> 00:29:03,200
Speaker 1: and major center of population even in I mean, it

527
00:29:03,240 --> 00:29:05,320
Speaker 1: could have changed the course of history. I mean, it

528
00:29:05,440 --> 00:29:10,800
Speaker 1: just it's it's impossible to really, I mean, I'm sure

529
00:29:10,880 --> 00:29:13,680
Speaker 1: you can you can sort of like follow individual uh,

530
00:29:13,760 --> 00:29:15,959
Speaker 1: you know, life stories and what non prefats There's been

531
00:29:16,000 --> 00:29:18,000
Speaker 1: some speculation on this, but I mean it would it

532
00:29:18,040 --> 00:29:19,840
Speaker 1: would have changed the course of history. It would have

533
00:29:20,240 --> 00:29:23,600
Speaker 1: It would have killed so many people and impacted uh,

534
00:29:23,640 --> 00:29:26,680
Speaker 1: you know, places of of of power. It would have

535
00:29:26,720 --> 00:29:29,400
Speaker 1: had an impact on on politics. I mean, this is

536
00:29:30,320 --> 00:29:34,880
Speaker 1: it's it's it's almost hard to fathom the the different

537
00:29:34,880 --> 00:29:38,120
Speaker 1: world we would live in had this thing impacted pretty

538
00:29:38,160 --> 00:29:41,320
Speaker 1: much anywhere else. Right. Uh. Now, one thing we do

539
00:29:41,400 --> 00:29:46,120
Speaker 1: know is that an object of the size is not Uh.

540
00:29:46,200 --> 00:29:48,880
Speaker 1: While it could have had worldwide events, like you're saying,

541
00:29:48,880 --> 00:29:51,720
Speaker 1: like cultural impacts that far, it would not have been

542
00:29:51,880 --> 00:29:57,640
Speaker 1: like the KPg extinction event size thing because it wouldn't

543
00:29:57,640 --> 00:30:00,560
Speaker 1: have like thrown up sediment that completely blocked out the

544
00:30:00,600 --> 00:30:03,240
Speaker 1: sun and like cut off photosynthesis. You know, it wouldn't

545
00:30:03,240 --> 00:30:06,000
Speaker 1: be that big, right, Like if it hits St. Petersburg,

546
00:30:06,120 --> 00:30:08,760
Speaker 1: it would not have wiped out humanity. It would not

547
00:30:08,840 --> 00:30:12,160
Speaker 1: have wiped out, you know, all members of the Russian

548
00:30:12,160 --> 00:30:14,640
Speaker 1: Empire or anything to to that extent, but it would

549
00:30:14,640 --> 00:30:18,800
Speaker 1: have severely it would have it would have killed countless

550
00:30:18,840 --> 00:30:21,960
Speaker 1: people in that one city. Yeah, catastrophic local effects and

551
00:30:22,000 --> 00:30:27,240
Speaker 1: maybe some maybe some smaller global effects. Um. And so

552
00:30:28,200 --> 00:30:31,440
Speaker 1: another question I guess is with strikes like this, these

553
00:30:31,440 --> 00:30:35,520
Speaker 1: smaller ones, not like the you know, KPg event level thing,

554
00:30:35,600 --> 00:30:38,360
Speaker 1: but with these smaller ones, has anybody studied what actually

555
00:30:38,440 --> 00:30:41,479
Speaker 1: happens to nearby humans and other life forms when this

556
00:30:41,520 --> 00:30:45,880
Speaker 1: type of impact occurs, Like if a Tungusca size object hits,

557
00:30:46,000 --> 00:30:49,560
Speaker 1: what happens to you if you're nearby? I did find yes,

558
00:30:49,560 --> 00:30:52,120
Speaker 1: there is at least one study of this uh. It

559
00:30:52,240 --> 00:30:56,720
Speaker 1: was published in Geophysical Research Letters in it's by rump

560
00:30:56,920 --> 00:31:00,320
Speaker 1: Lewis and Atkinson. Is called Asteroid Impact of X and

561
00:31:00,320 --> 00:31:04,400
Speaker 1: their Immediate Hazards for Human populations. And what the authors

562
00:31:04,440 --> 00:31:07,080
Speaker 1: did here is they simulated the impacts of more than

563
00:31:07,200 --> 00:31:11,520
Speaker 1: fifty thousand asteroid strikes at random locations on the surface

564
00:31:11,600 --> 00:31:14,520
Speaker 1: of the Earth to gain insights on the average effects

565
00:31:14,640 --> 00:31:17,760
Speaker 1: of human populations who would be nearby and so. Here

566
00:31:17,760 --> 00:31:19,560
Speaker 1: were a few of their main findings. One is that

567
00:31:20,360 --> 00:31:24,280
Speaker 1: objects are less than maybe like sixty or seventy meters

568
00:31:24,320 --> 00:31:27,440
Speaker 1: across tend not to hit the surface of the Earth,

569
00:31:27,480 --> 00:31:31,320
Speaker 1: but rather always explode in the atmosphere. And this is

570
00:31:31,360 --> 00:31:33,880
Speaker 1: not without risks like remember that all the damage caused

571
00:31:33,880 --> 00:31:36,880
Speaker 1: by the Chelabinsk media which exploded in the sky, but

572
00:31:37,160 --> 00:31:40,720
Speaker 1: it it tends to generate the air burst only, and

573
00:31:40,760 --> 00:31:43,240
Speaker 1: an air bursts can still be powerful and dangerous. The

574
00:31:43,520 --> 00:31:46,200
Speaker 1: main theory, of course about the Tunguska event is that

575
00:31:46,240 --> 00:31:48,840
Speaker 1: it was an air burst. It's exploded in the atmosphere

576
00:31:48,840 --> 00:31:50,600
Speaker 1: and didn't have a chance to hit the ground, even

577
00:31:50,640 --> 00:31:53,600
Speaker 1: though it was a good bit bigger. But for most

578
00:31:53,760 --> 00:31:57,440
Speaker 1: sizes of asteroids, by far the greatest risk to humans

579
00:31:57,600 --> 00:32:01,200
Speaker 1: is from what's known as wind blast. These are waves,

580
00:32:01,280 --> 00:32:04,200
Speaker 1: you know, wave of hot compressed air exploding out of

581
00:32:04,200 --> 00:32:07,600
Speaker 1: the object. Uh. The second greatest risk after that is

582
00:32:07,640 --> 00:32:11,120
Speaker 1: just straight thermal risk heat generated due to the impact,

583
00:32:11,480 --> 00:32:14,080
Speaker 1: And then the third greatest risk in general was due

584
00:32:14,080 --> 00:32:17,080
Speaker 1: to tsunamis, And the authors actually found that risk to

585
00:32:17,160 --> 00:32:20,800
Speaker 1: human life from tsunamis is relatively lower than they expected,

586
00:32:21,400 --> 00:32:24,560
Speaker 1: but it increases a lot as the object becomes larger

587
00:32:24,600 --> 00:32:27,520
Speaker 1: than like two hundred or two hundred and fifty in diameter,

588
00:32:28,120 --> 00:32:31,160
Speaker 1: And their estimates only include objects up to four hundred

589
00:32:31,200 --> 00:32:35,000
Speaker 1: meters in diameter, so effects could change dramatically as objects

590
00:32:35,000 --> 00:32:37,400
Speaker 1: become bigger and bigger. Now, Robert, I think I think

591
00:32:37,400 --> 00:32:39,640
Speaker 1: we should step back after what we've just been talking about.

592
00:32:39,680 --> 00:32:42,480
Speaker 1: We should do in lot a reality check. We don't

593
00:32:42,480 --> 00:32:45,560
Speaker 1: want to be alarmists, so to reiterate, the odds are

594
00:32:45,600 --> 00:32:48,080
Speaker 1: in our favor here, at least on short time scales,

595
00:32:48,120 --> 00:32:51,600
Speaker 1: because the vast majority of asteroids of this size don't

596
00:32:51,640 --> 00:32:54,960
Speaker 1: come this close to Earth, maybe roughly one every ten years.

597
00:32:55,000 --> 00:32:58,440
Speaker 1: By that estimate we talked about earlier, only about zero

598
00:32:58,520 --> 00:33:01,280
Speaker 1: point five percent of asteroid it's that pass within this

599
00:33:01,400 --> 00:33:04,720
Speaker 1: range will actually hit Earth. And then even if one

600
00:33:04,760 --> 00:33:07,760
Speaker 1: does hit Earth, most of the world's surfaces water, though

601
00:33:07,800 --> 00:33:09,760
Speaker 1: of course there can be threats from an impact in

602
00:33:09,800 --> 00:33:13,080
Speaker 1: water depending on where it happens. And then much of

603
00:33:13,120 --> 00:33:15,960
Speaker 1: the land surface of Earth is sparsely populated, so on

604
00:33:16,080 --> 00:33:19,800
Speaker 1: short time scales, the odds of a catastrophic impact on

605
00:33:19,840 --> 00:33:21,880
Speaker 1: a city or something like that are very very low.

606
00:33:22,240 --> 00:33:24,760
Speaker 1: But it's one of those cases where the chance of

607
00:33:24,800 --> 00:33:27,640
Speaker 1: a bad outcome on a short time scale may be low,

608
00:33:28,000 --> 00:33:30,960
Speaker 1: but the consequences when that off chance does come to

609
00:33:31,000 --> 00:33:35,040
Speaker 1: pass are devastating and on. Of course, the the other

610
00:33:35,080 --> 00:33:37,560
Speaker 1: side of the coin is that on long enough time scales,

611
00:33:37,880 --> 00:33:42,000
Speaker 1: these events go from extremely unlikely to near certainty. Yeah,

612
00:33:42,000 --> 00:33:43,760
Speaker 1: one of the things I keep keep asking when I

613
00:33:43,760 --> 00:33:46,000
Speaker 1: look at all these stats. It's like, Okay, am I

614
00:33:46,040 --> 00:33:49,000
Speaker 1: comfortable with those odds? But then if I'm comfortable with

615
00:33:49,000 --> 00:33:51,320
Speaker 1: the odds, am I am I comfortable with the steaks?

616
00:33:51,800 --> 00:33:55,040
Speaker 1: You know? Yeah? Totally uh. And it also raises, I

617
00:33:55,040 --> 00:33:57,959
Speaker 1: guess a tangentially interesting question, at least to me, which is, like,

618
00:33:58,600 --> 00:34:02,080
Speaker 1: how long have a time scale should we be concerned about? Like,

619
00:34:02,120 --> 00:34:06,520
Speaker 1: if something is a civilization level threat but it's unlikely

620
00:34:06,600 --> 00:34:09,759
Speaker 1: to happen, you know, more than once within the next

621
00:34:09,760 --> 00:34:12,919
Speaker 1: ten thousand years, how much of our attention should it get?

622
00:34:13,080 --> 00:34:15,640
Speaker 1: Well that's how much should or how much will it?

623
00:34:15,840 --> 00:34:17,560
Speaker 1: You know? I mean, well, yeah, those are very I

624
00:34:17,560 --> 00:34:23,280
Speaker 1: mean exactly tend to be rather terrible at at weighing

625
00:34:23,400 --> 00:34:26,880
Speaker 1: you know, our immediate situation with long term threats to

626
00:34:26,600 --> 00:34:29,319
Speaker 1: to to the survival of the human race sort of

627
00:34:29,320 --> 00:34:32,480
Speaker 1: the health of the planet. Yeah, you're exactly right about that.

628
00:34:32,520 --> 00:34:36,040
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously we're not even appropriately preparing for extremely

629
00:34:36,200 --> 00:34:39,839
Speaker 1: likely to near certain climate related problems that are less

630
00:34:39,840 --> 00:34:41,759
Speaker 1: than a hundred years away some or even you know,

631
00:34:41,840 --> 00:34:44,680
Speaker 1: happening now or decades away. So maybe this question about

632
00:34:44,719 --> 00:34:47,080
Speaker 1: longer time scales is moot just given like what our

633
00:34:47,120 --> 00:34:49,480
Speaker 1: capabilities are, Like, maybe it doesn't even matter what we

634
00:34:49,480 --> 00:34:52,720
Speaker 1: should be doing, because humans just can't make themselves do it.

635
00:34:52,760 --> 00:34:55,040
Speaker 1: But I don't want to be resigned or you know,

636
00:34:55,080 --> 00:34:57,040
Speaker 1: I don't want to throw in the towel about that

637
00:34:57,120 --> 00:34:59,440
Speaker 1: just because we haven't been good at it so far. No,

638
00:34:59,520 --> 00:35:03,680
Speaker 1: because we the we have the tremendous ability to correct

639
00:35:03,719 --> 00:35:06,080
Speaker 1: these errors. I mean, this has often brought up on

640
00:35:06,200 --> 00:35:09,960
Speaker 1: the subject of climate change. Uh you know, well that's

641
00:35:09,960 --> 00:35:12,160
Speaker 1: what I was just referring to. Yeah, I mean, but

642
00:35:12,160 --> 00:35:15,920
Speaker 1: but specifically with climate change. Like, yes, we've got ourselves

643
00:35:15,920 --> 00:35:18,719
Speaker 1: into quite a mess, and that's that's bad. But the

644
00:35:18,760 --> 00:35:21,279
Speaker 1: good side of it is we got ourselves into so

645
00:35:21,360 --> 00:35:23,560
Speaker 1: much of this mess that just shows you the potential

646
00:35:23,880 --> 00:35:27,680
Speaker 1: of human technology. Like, look at what we can do. Granted,

647
00:35:28,320 --> 00:35:30,400
Speaker 1: we screwed things up here, but we imagine if we

648
00:35:30,480 --> 00:35:33,360
Speaker 1: use that same level of energy and intensity towards a

649
00:35:33,400 --> 00:35:36,920
Speaker 1: corrective measure. Yes, though I want to be clear that

650
00:35:37,160 --> 00:35:40,000
Speaker 1: so we're not misunderstood here. We are not advising people

651
00:35:40,280 --> 00:35:42,520
Speaker 1: to hang their hat on like a potential like Holy

652
00:35:42,560 --> 00:35:45,160
Speaker 1: Grail technology that will get rid of all the carbon

653
00:35:45,280 --> 00:35:47,560
Speaker 1: or something like that. That is not a gamble that's

654
00:35:47,560 --> 00:35:49,680
Speaker 1: worth playing with. I think they're talking about like other

655
00:35:49,800 --> 00:35:53,279
Speaker 1: energy technology, other energy technologies, and also just like corrective

656
00:35:53,280 --> 00:35:57,200
Speaker 1: measures like and a willingness to change in that case. Yeah, absolutely,

657
00:35:57,440 --> 00:35:58,919
Speaker 1: But I don't know, I mean, I I do think

658
00:35:58,960 --> 00:36:01,919
Speaker 1: like this is a different kind of thing than climate change,

659
00:36:01,920 --> 00:36:04,719
Speaker 1: because climate change is something that we're like, we're we're

660
00:36:04,800 --> 00:36:07,920
Speaker 1: like near certain about some types of effects that are

661
00:36:07,960 --> 00:36:10,840
Speaker 1: coming within a you know, compared to this a relatively

662
00:36:10,880 --> 00:36:14,040
Speaker 1: short time scale. They're like almost definitely going to happen

663
00:36:14,080 --> 00:36:17,120
Speaker 1: within decades or a hundred years or something, and the

664
00:36:17,120 --> 00:36:20,480
Speaker 1: effects will be catastrophic. So that's like you'd probably say

665
00:36:20,520 --> 00:36:23,520
Speaker 1: that's actually a higher priority, but but this is a

666
00:36:23,560 --> 00:36:27,239
Speaker 1: different priority, so that it's like a catastrophic tail risk.

667
00:36:27,280 --> 00:36:30,120
Speaker 1: It's unlikely that we would get hit by an asteroid

668
00:36:30,200 --> 00:36:32,759
Speaker 1: like this anytime soon, but if we did, it could

669
00:36:32,840 --> 00:36:35,440
Speaker 1: be really bad, right of course. That The other obvious

670
00:36:35,440 --> 00:36:39,719
Speaker 1: thing to point out is that asteroids have mostly, if

671
00:36:39,719 --> 00:36:44,000
Speaker 1: not entirely and thankfully not been politicized. Oh yeah, so

672
00:36:44,080 --> 00:36:46,160
Speaker 1: nobody is out there saying why aren't we why are

673
00:36:46,239 --> 00:36:51,439
Speaker 1: we charting the asteroids? Like look at the I mean they,

674
00:36:51,480 --> 00:36:53,719
Speaker 1: I mean, you could easily imagine somebody taking up this

675
00:36:53,800 --> 00:36:57,239
Speaker 1: is is there. They're they're horrible battle cry and saying,

676
00:36:57,239 --> 00:36:59,640
Speaker 1: look how much we're spending on space exploration, Look how

677
00:36:59,719 --> 00:37:02,760
Speaker 1: much we're spending on this, on on watching the movements

678
00:37:02,760 --> 00:37:05,239
Speaker 1: of the asteroids, and look at these astronomical chances that

679
00:37:05,320 --> 00:37:07,560
Speaker 1: anything is going to hit us. Well, the unfortunate fact

680
00:37:07,600 --> 00:37:09,920
Speaker 1: about the politicization of science is that it does not

681
00:37:10,080 --> 00:37:13,680
Speaker 1: require both sides in order to happen. You can asymmetrically

682
00:37:13,760 --> 00:37:18,200
Speaker 1: politicize and currently non political issue, you know, just by

683
00:37:18,239 --> 00:37:20,399
Speaker 1: having one side get worked up about it, and then

684
00:37:20,440 --> 00:37:24,279
Speaker 1: of course the process is irreversible. And so please don't

685
00:37:24,360 --> 00:37:28,040
Speaker 1: do that with the planetary defense and stuff about, right, Yeah, hopefully,

686
00:37:28,040 --> 00:37:30,640
Speaker 1: I think planetary defense should be something that we that

687
00:37:30,800 --> 00:37:33,680
Speaker 1: everybody can agree on, and we should all like everybody

688
00:37:33,719 --> 00:37:35,359
Speaker 1: should be able to agree, Yes, this is a this

689
00:37:35,440 --> 00:37:37,520
Speaker 1: is a good investment in our future. It's like having

690
00:37:37,520 --> 00:37:40,719
Speaker 1: a lock on the door to your house. Yeah. But

691
00:37:40,760 --> 00:37:43,319
Speaker 1: then again, the exact same thing should be true about

692
00:37:43,400 --> 00:37:45,879
Speaker 1: alternative energy and climate change and stuff, and it's true

693
00:37:46,080 --> 00:37:50,160
Speaker 1: not I mean, clearly, what is in our interest to

694
00:37:50,400 --> 00:37:53,680
Speaker 1: de politicize does not correlate to what people actually do

695
00:37:53,760 --> 00:37:56,640
Speaker 1: de politicize. I think hopefully one I think one thing

696
00:37:56,640 --> 00:37:59,040
Speaker 1: in our favor here is that, as we've discussed on

697
00:37:59,080 --> 00:38:01,640
Speaker 1: the show, one of the problems with climate issues is

698
00:38:01,640 --> 00:38:04,560
Speaker 1: that it's it's very difficult for most of us to

699
00:38:04,560 --> 00:38:07,200
Speaker 1: wrap our hands heads around all that's happening in this

700
00:38:07,280 --> 00:38:11,520
Speaker 1: vast chaotic system of atmosphere and uh in climate. You know,

701
00:38:11,560 --> 00:38:14,319
Speaker 1: it's particularly when you're dealing with with larger periods of time,

702
00:38:14,440 --> 00:38:17,040
Speaker 1: oh and asteroids more like an easy to identify villain.

703
00:38:17,360 --> 00:38:19,200
Speaker 1: It's like it's like a rock thrown at your head.

704
00:38:19,280 --> 00:38:21,640
Speaker 1: Like we can instantly be like, yeah, like i'm here,

705
00:38:22,200 --> 00:38:25,279
Speaker 1: that's there. That should not hit where I am, and

706
00:38:25,320 --> 00:38:28,040
Speaker 1: like we can all agree that that that this this

707
00:38:28,080 --> 00:38:29,399
Speaker 1: is a bad thing, that should be that the big

708
00:38:29,400 --> 00:38:33,480
Speaker 1: should should be avoided at all costs and easier to

709
00:38:33,800 --> 00:38:37,200
Speaker 1: process in the mind, it's an incoming projectile, and we've

710
00:38:37,280 --> 00:38:39,839
Speaker 1: we've evolved to deal with that kind of threat. That's

711
00:38:39,880 --> 00:38:42,840
Speaker 1: a really good point, and I think it's absolutely, of

712
00:38:42,880 --> 00:38:45,799
Speaker 1: course worth investing in planetary defense at multiple levels, by

713
00:38:45,800 --> 00:38:49,160
Speaker 1: the way, probably most importantly right now, and expanding our

714
00:38:49,200 --> 00:38:52,600
Speaker 1: surveying capabilities right to increase our ability to catalog and

715
00:38:52,640 --> 00:38:55,320
Speaker 1: track near Earth objects, which we're already doing a pretty

716
00:38:55,320 --> 00:38:57,640
Speaker 1: good job at with Earth based telescopes and all that,

717
00:38:57,680 --> 00:39:01,319
Speaker 1: but expanding those capabilities it sounds like a very good

718
00:39:01,360 --> 00:39:03,359
Speaker 1: idea to me. And then I guess the next thing

719
00:39:03,400 --> 00:39:05,040
Speaker 1: on top of that is something that maybe we'll talk

720
00:39:05,040 --> 00:39:07,000
Speaker 1: about at the end of the episode, is what would

721
00:39:07,040 --> 00:39:09,600
Speaker 1: we do if we did detect something? You know, pretty

722
00:39:09,640 --> 00:39:12,600
Speaker 1: we did have fore warning, we're pretty sure something's on

723
00:39:12,600 --> 00:39:14,920
Speaker 1: a collision course with Earth. Is there anything we can

724
00:39:14,960 --> 00:39:18,040
Speaker 1: actually do about it? Right? All right, well, let's take

725
00:39:18,160 --> 00:39:20,799
Speaker 1: another break and when we come back, we'll discuss our

726
00:39:20,840 --> 00:39:24,279
Speaker 1: general state of preparedness for small near Earth objects and

727
00:39:24,320 --> 00:39:26,839
Speaker 1: then yeah, what what we would do if something did

728
00:39:26,880 --> 00:39:33,120
Speaker 1: seem to have our name on it? Thank? Thank Alright,

729
00:39:33,120 --> 00:39:36,200
Speaker 1: we're back. Okay, So Robert, we need to talk about

730
00:39:36,239 --> 00:39:38,960
Speaker 1: what we would do if we got some bad news

731
00:39:39,040 --> 00:39:41,960
Speaker 1: about a an asteroid uh coming down the pike in

732
00:39:41,960 --> 00:39:44,279
Speaker 1: our direction? All right? Well, yeah, well first let's let's

733
00:39:44,360 --> 00:39:47,040
Speaker 1: let's touch again on our general state of preparedness. So,

734
00:39:47,600 --> 00:39:52,400
Speaker 1: like we said earlier, of extinction, class near Earth objects

735
00:39:52,400 --> 00:39:54,759
Speaker 1: and eos are are marked, and it works out in

736
00:39:54,760 --> 00:39:57,479
Speaker 1: our favor because the bigger ones are easier to see.

737
00:39:57,600 --> 00:40:01,239
Speaker 1: Exactly fortunate our ability to to track these things has

738
00:40:01,280 --> 00:40:03,720
Speaker 1: certainly come a long way. Like I was reading about

739
00:40:03,719 --> 00:40:11,160
Speaker 1: how in observations of the asteroid n XF eleven suggested

740
00:40:11,239 --> 00:40:14,799
Speaker 1: that this half mile wide object would just simply hit

741
00:40:14,840 --> 00:40:18,440
Speaker 1: the Earth in. Only later did it turn out, via

742
00:40:18,520 --> 00:40:21,800
Speaker 1: better orbit analysis that the Earth actually isn't in danger

743
00:40:21,840 --> 00:40:23,960
Speaker 1: from this particular asteroid. So it was just you know,

744
00:40:24,000 --> 00:40:26,200
Speaker 1: more or less taken off the list based on our

745
00:40:26,200 --> 00:40:29,600
Speaker 1: current data. NASA has a sort of rogues gallery of

746
00:40:29,640 --> 00:40:34,279
Speaker 1: potentially dangerous asteroids or UM, you know, also known as

747
00:40:34,719 --> 00:40:38,360
Speaker 1: p h as fause potentially has dis asteroids, that's the

748
00:40:38,400 --> 00:40:42,520
Speaker 1: abbreviation UM. And these are ones that are predicted to

749
00:40:42,560 --> 00:40:46,200
Speaker 1: you know, to make close passes, such as say feet on,

750
00:40:46,600 --> 00:40:49,279
Speaker 1: which made a close pass in twenty seventeen, and we'll

751
00:40:49,320 --> 00:40:53,000
Speaker 1: make a closer pass in but we're talking about a

752
00:40:53,320 --> 00:40:58,359
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen distance of what, let's see, ten million, three

753
00:40:58,600 --> 00:41:01,720
Speaker 1: d and twelve thousand and thirty four kilometers or six million,

754
00:41:01,800 --> 00:41:05,080
Speaker 1: four hundred and seven thousand and six hundred one miles

755
00:41:05,560 --> 00:41:08,040
Speaker 1: and then uh, the next pass, we're going to see

756
00:41:08,080 --> 00:41:11,600
Speaker 1: it come in at two million, nine sixty four thousand

757
00:41:11,680 --> 00:41:14,880
Speaker 1: kilometers or one million, eight hundred forty one thousand miles,

758
00:41:14,920 --> 00:41:17,520
Speaker 1: which is still again close enough to be of concern.

759
00:41:17,640 --> 00:41:20,000
Speaker 1: But again this is just a to to really drive

760
00:41:20,040 --> 00:41:22,880
Speaker 1: home the distances we're talking about here. So there are

761
00:41:22,880 --> 00:41:25,840
Speaker 1: a number there are a number of potentially hazardous asteroids,

762
00:41:25,880 --> 00:41:29,080
Speaker 1: but even the more hazardous ones have a pretty low

763
00:41:29,160 --> 00:41:31,200
Speaker 1: chance of hitting the Earth. One of the biggest known

764
00:41:31,280 --> 00:41:34,080
Speaker 1: dangers out there right now, for example, is two thousand

765
00:41:34,239 --> 00:41:37,800
Speaker 1: s g threety four, which has a one and eleven

766
00:41:37,920 --> 00:41:41,879
Speaker 1: hundred chance of impact in one and again I come

767
00:41:41,880 --> 00:41:44,480
Speaker 1: back to that question. You might are you might be

768
00:41:44,600 --> 00:41:46,960
Speaker 1: cool with those odds, but are you cool with the steaks?

769
00:41:48,640 --> 00:41:51,239
Speaker 1: It's again easier to spot the big civilization busters, and

770
00:41:51,239 --> 00:41:53,800
Speaker 1: that's where that nine tracking rate comes in. But according

771
00:41:53,840 --> 00:41:56,040
Speaker 1: to the Planetary Society, which has a has a number

772
00:41:56,080 --> 00:42:01,240
Speaker 1: of wonderful um uh educational resources on space, experty and astronomy,

773
00:42:01,239 --> 00:42:04,920
Speaker 1: we're only tracking like twenty thousand out of a million

774
00:42:05,040 --> 00:42:08,840
Speaker 1: smaller but potentially deadly pH s. So we need to

775
00:42:08,880 --> 00:42:12,680
Speaker 1: improve our tracking capabilities right for these again, to deal

776
00:42:12,680 --> 00:42:17,360
Speaker 1: with these potential city busters, especially, So I suppose the

777
00:42:17,400 --> 00:42:19,319
Speaker 1: answer is that you know, we're doing better than we

778
00:42:19,400 --> 00:42:22,400
Speaker 1: ever have, but there's a lot of room for improvement

779
00:42:22,400 --> 00:42:25,160
Speaker 1: and lots more room for certainty when the stakes are

780
00:42:25,239 --> 00:42:27,840
Speaker 1: this high. And this is also a very important reason

781
00:42:28,040 --> 00:42:30,880
Speaker 1: to always support and vote for political candidates and parties

782
00:42:30,880 --> 00:42:34,880
Speaker 1: that value science, scientific consensus, and h and manifest that

783
00:42:34,960 --> 00:42:37,960
Speaker 1: support for science in the form of policy and funding. Now,

784
00:42:37,960 --> 00:42:40,440
Speaker 1: the next question is, okay, what if we what if

785
00:42:40,440 --> 00:42:42,799
Speaker 1: we do spot one that is just coming way too

786
00:42:42,800 --> 00:42:45,880
Speaker 1: close for comfort? What are we prepared to do about it?

787
00:42:47,160 --> 00:42:50,520
Speaker 1: And this is an area where various plans have been

788
00:42:50,560 --> 00:42:52,719
Speaker 1: presented over the years, and it's really like it's one

789
00:42:52,760 --> 00:42:56,120
Speaker 1: of these scenarios that that you really get the sense

790
00:42:56,160 --> 00:42:58,600
Speaker 1: that a lot of you know, astronomers and science is

791
00:42:58,640 --> 00:43:03,200
Speaker 1: really relish. The problem is a pure thought experiment, like

792
00:43:03,239 --> 00:43:07,320
Speaker 1: what can you do to to deal with an asteroid

793
00:43:07,360 --> 00:43:09,800
Speaker 1: that is on course to hit the Earth or getting

794
00:43:09,840 --> 00:43:12,399
Speaker 1: way too close to the Earth for our comfort level?

795
00:43:12,520 --> 00:43:16,080
Speaker 1: So you get Bruce Willis, Oh, no, I'm sorry, I

796
00:43:16,160 --> 00:43:18,200
Speaker 1: made that joke. You know. I was like, I'm gonna

797
00:43:18,239 --> 00:43:20,680
Speaker 1: go this episode without referencing arm Agin, and then I

798
00:43:20,760 --> 00:43:23,720
Speaker 1: just did it anyway. Yeah, well, I've never seen Armagin,

799
00:43:23,760 --> 00:43:25,279
Speaker 1: so I can't I can't even chime in on that.

800
00:43:25,800 --> 00:43:27,640
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's worth your time. But I've

801
00:43:27,680 --> 00:43:30,160
Speaker 1: seen chronicles of Riddick and that had that had a

802
00:43:30,280 --> 00:43:34,000
Speaker 1: dangerous sort of near Earth object like the Necromonger spaceship.

803
00:43:35,320 --> 00:43:38,040
Speaker 1: As a comment, right, oh man, those those rat tail

804
00:43:38,080 --> 00:43:41,360
Speaker 1: braids on Carl Urban's head, and that that is the

805
00:43:41,440 --> 00:43:44,359
Speaker 1: near Earth object that I'm most worried about. All right,

806
00:43:44,560 --> 00:43:47,000
Speaker 1: So a near Earth object coming at the planet. What

807
00:43:47,040 --> 00:43:49,320
Speaker 1: can you do? Well, all the all the proposed solutions

808
00:43:49,320 --> 00:43:51,920
Speaker 1: tend to fall under one of two categories. Either you

809
00:43:52,000 --> 00:43:55,560
Speaker 1: destroy the near Earth object, fragmenting it into smaller chunks,

810
00:43:56,280 --> 00:43:59,799
Speaker 1: or you alter its trajectory. I am of the you know,

811
00:43:59,840 --> 00:44:02,359
Speaker 1: I'm not an expert in this realm, but I'm of

812
00:44:02,400 --> 00:44:04,399
Speaker 1: the opinion that one of the forks of the stile

813
00:44:04,400 --> 00:44:07,640
Speaker 1: emma is much better than the other. Well, blowing it

814
00:44:07,719 --> 00:44:09,759
Speaker 1: up is certainly very you know, I think it's an

815
00:44:09,760 --> 00:44:12,840
Speaker 1: ego inflate inflating option to be sure, you know, launch

816
00:44:12,880 --> 00:44:15,000
Speaker 1: a nuke, get into that puppy and just make it

817
00:44:15,040 --> 00:44:18,480
Speaker 1: go boom. Right. Of course, the thing is this fragments

818
00:44:19,000 --> 00:44:22,240
Speaker 1: the larger ineo into smaller chunks that you know, hopefully

819
00:44:22,280 --> 00:44:24,480
Speaker 1: if you're dealing with a small enough ineo, you know,

820
00:44:24,520 --> 00:44:26,399
Speaker 1: you're you're breaking it up into chunks that will then

821
00:44:26,440 --> 00:44:29,040
Speaker 1: just burn up in the atmosphere should you hit the atmosphere.

822
00:44:29,680 --> 00:44:31,799
Speaker 1: But you know it's also you could look at it

823
00:44:31,800 --> 00:44:33,280
Speaker 1: another way and say, well, it's a bit like turning

824
00:44:33,280 --> 00:44:36,600
Speaker 1: an incoming slug or an incoming bullet into an incoming

825
00:44:36,640 --> 00:44:40,879
Speaker 1: blast of buckshot. Right. According according to Alan Duffy, one

826
00:44:40,880 --> 00:44:43,719
Speaker 1: of the researchers we mentioned earlier, he was quoted in

827
00:44:43,719 --> 00:44:47,319
Speaker 1: the Washington Post saying that this option of nuking it

828
00:44:47,360 --> 00:44:49,359
Speaker 1: and blowing it into pieces, he says, quote, it makes

829
00:44:49,360 --> 00:44:52,000
Speaker 1: for a great Hollywood film. The challenge with a nuke

830
00:44:52,120 --> 00:44:54,319
Speaker 1: is that it may or may not work, but would

831
00:44:54,360 --> 00:44:58,640
Speaker 1: definitely make the asteroid radioactive. Okay, so radioactive buckshot? Ye

832
00:44:58,800 --> 00:45:03,520
Speaker 1: coming I ship Now. The more popular ideas involve changing

833
00:45:03,520 --> 00:45:07,840
Speaker 1: the ineo's trajectory, and these range from crashing another object

834
00:45:07,960 --> 00:45:10,839
Speaker 1: into it so like croquet or Billard style, you know,

835
00:45:11,080 --> 00:45:15,200
Speaker 1: to gently gently nudging it off course. This is generally

836
00:45:15,200 --> 00:45:18,200
Speaker 1: known as the kinetic impact, but you could also use

837
00:45:18,320 --> 00:45:20,279
Speaker 1: nukes for this as well. It should be point out

838
00:45:20,320 --> 00:45:23,520
Speaker 1: like if you were to use a nuclear device to

839
00:45:23,600 --> 00:45:27,359
Speaker 1: deter to deflect an asteroid, you wouldn't have to like

840
00:45:27,560 --> 00:45:29,920
Speaker 1: blow it up. You could just create an explosion in

841
00:45:29,920 --> 00:45:32,279
Speaker 1: a close enough proximity to it to try and nudge

842
00:45:32,320 --> 00:45:34,719
Speaker 1: it off course. Yeah, so you could, you know, of

843
00:45:34,760 --> 00:45:37,000
Speaker 1: course you could have a kinetic impact or an explosion

844
00:45:37,520 --> 00:45:40,880
Speaker 1: try to divert its course. Another often discussed solution is

845
00:45:40,920 --> 00:45:44,000
Speaker 1: what's known as the gravity tractor. Oh yeah, I really

846
00:45:44,040 --> 00:45:46,879
Speaker 1: like this one. So this involves flying a probe out

847
00:45:46,960 --> 00:45:49,960
Speaker 1: to meet the asteroid and then having the probe simply

848
00:45:50,000 --> 00:45:53,520
Speaker 1: fly alongside it. And remember that gravity works both ways.

849
00:45:53,560 --> 00:45:56,880
Speaker 1: It not only attracts smaller bodies to larger ones, it

850
00:45:56,920 --> 00:45:59,560
Speaker 1: also attracts larger bodies to smaller ones. For example, in

851
00:45:59,600 --> 00:46:03,080
Speaker 1: our Solar System, the planets actually do exert a small

852
00:46:03,120 --> 00:46:06,120
Speaker 1: gravitational influence over the Sun, causing it to sort of

853
00:46:06,120 --> 00:46:08,839
Speaker 1: wobble in place, and the same would be true here.

854
00:46:08,920 --> 00:46:11,919
Speaker 1: Over time, if you have a small spacecraft flying next

855
00:46:11,960 --> 00:46:15,640
Speaker 1: to an asteroid, the asteroid would feel a slight gravitational

856
00:46:15,760 --> 00:46:19,520
Speaker 1: tug toward the mutual center of gravity that shares with

857
00:46:19,600 --> 00:46:23,240
Speaker 1: the probe flying alongside it, and this gravitational tug would slowly,

858
00:46:23,400 --> 00:46:28,000
Speaker 1: over time nudge the asteroid off its trajectory and something

859
00:46:28,000 --> 00:46:30,000
Speaker 1: about the solution is kind of beautiful to me, and

860
00:46:30,040 --> 00:46:32,960
Speaker 1: I can tell from the way that many astrophysicists talk

861
00:46:33,040 --> 00:46:35,080
Speaker 1: about this they kind of feel the same way. I

862
00:46:35,200 --> 00:46:38,320
Speaker 1: often see the gravity tractor described with the word elegant.

863
00:46:38,600 --> 00:46:40,600
Speaker 1: I feel like it's kind of the Pixar solution because

864
00:46:40,600 --> 00:46:42,959
Speaker 1: I can imagine it as a Pixar short the big

865
00:46:43,000 --> 00:46:46,359
Speaker 1: grumpy asteroid that's on its way to destroy us, and

866
00:46:46,440 --> 00:46:48,840
Speaker 1: we solve it not by launching a weapon at it,

867
00:46:48,840 --> 00:46:51,400
Speaker 1: but by sending a robot friend. It gets there, it

868
00:46:51,400 --> 00:46:54,719
Speaker 1: gets a manic Pixie gravity tractors, and and then it

869
00:46:54,800 --> 00:46:58,000
Speaker 1: just over time, you know, it gradually steers off course

870
00:46:58,040 --> 00:47:00,640
Speaker 1: and chooses a new path in line. Now, the key

871
00:47:00,680 --> 00:47:03,840
Speaker 1: to either of these, whether it's kinetic impact or or

872
00:47:03,960 --> 00:47:07,839
Speaker 1: gravity tractor, if you're trying to divert the trajectory, the

873
00:47:07,920 --> 00:47:11,920
Speaker 1: key is lead time. The earlier you detect a potential

874
00:47:11,960 --> 00:47:15,080
Speaker 1: threat asteroid, the easier it is to divert. Kind of

875
00:47:15,120 --> 00:47:17,359
Speaker 1: like if you imagine you're trying to knock off the

876
00:47:17,360 --> 00:47:20,760
Speaker 1: aim of a gun. If it's at point blank range,

877
00:47:20,880 --> 00:47:23,120
Speaker 1: this is a lot harder, you know, because the gun

878
00:47:23,160 --> 00:47:25,279
Speaker 1: can move around a lot and still hit you. If

879
00:47:25,280 --> 00:47:29,040
Speaker 1: it's a very long range, an extremely tiny nudge will

880
00:47:29,080 --> 00:47:32,000
Speaker 1: cause a miss right just because of the distance. You know,

881
00:47:32,080 --> 00:47:34,360
Speaker 1: it goes wider and wider as it gets farther and

882
00:47:34,400 --> 00:47:36,719
Speaker 1: farther away. Yeah, so it means that if you if

883
00:47:36,719 --> 00:47:39,440
Speaker 1: you had advanced knowledge and you had the ability to

884
00:47:39,640 --> 00:47:42,560
Speaker 1: send something out there to it some sort of probe.

885
00:47:43,320 --> 00:47:45,439
Speaker 1: There are a number of more elegant solutions that present

886
00:47:45,520 --> 00:47:49,440
Speaker 1: themselves that don't involve massive explosions and big kinetic strikes.

887
00:47:49,960 --> 00:47:53,960
Speaker 1: Uh So. Individual strategies involve everything from a fixing rocket

888
00:47:53,960 --> 00:47:57,440
Speaker 1: boosters to to an object to one of my favorites,

889
00:47:57,719 --> 00:48:01,560
Speaker 1: simply painting it white. Because consider if if an object

890
00:48:01,680 --> 00:48:05,280
Speaker 1: were were darker, it would reflect something like the sunlight,

891
00:48:05,520 --> 00:48:07,719
Speaker 1: but a white coat of paint. You see that number

892
00:48:07,760 --> 00:48:11,719
Speaker 1: go up to about so altering the way photons of

893
00:48:11,800 --> 00:48:16,320
Speaker 1: light interact with an ineos surface, either through paint another

894
00:48:16,320 --> 00:48:19,759
Speaker 1: way that is sometimes there's been a suggested is through

895
00:48:20,120 --> 00:48:23,880
Speaker 1: solar sale shading. So move some sort of large solar

896
00:48:23,920 --> 00:48:27,600
Speaker 1: sale device essentially a big space umbrella between the sun

897
00:48:28,160 --> 00:48:32,359
Speaker 1: and the asteroid, or use lasers, etcetera. And this would

898
00:48:32,360 --> 00:48:36,279
Speaker 1: allow you to mess with the Arkovsky effect. Now, the

899
00:48:36,440 --> 00:48:40,640
Speaker 1: Arkovsky effect, this is the NASA definition. Is it's name

900
00:48:40,719 --> 00:48:44,719
Speaker 1: for a nineteenth century nineteenth century Russian engineer who first

901
00:48:44,719 --> 00:48:47,440
Speaker 1: proposed the idea, and that is that a small, rocky

902
00:48:47,480 --> 00:48:51,520
Speaker 1: space object would, over long periods of time be noticeably

903
00:48:51,640 --> 00:48:55,040
Speaker 1: nudged in its orbit by the slight push created when

904
00:48:55,239 --> 00:48:58,640
Speaker 1: it absorbs sunlight and then re emits that energy is heat,

905
00:48:58,960 --> 00:49:01,080
Speaker 1: which is pretty which is pretty wonderful to think about.

906
00:49:01,120 --> 00:49:02,920
Speaker 1: It's like you don't have to send out at a

907
00:49:02,960 --> 00:49:06,120
Speaker 1: bomb or or a robot to mess with it, and

908
00:49:06,160 --> 00:49:08,719
Speaker 1: like strap rockets onto it. All you have to do

909
00:49:08,960 --> 00:49:11,880
Speaker 1: is send more or less light and you can alter

910
00:49:12,160 --> 00:49:15,960
Speaker 1: the trajectory of this asteroid. But again, all of these

911
00:49:16,239 --> 00:49:19,560
Speaker 1: these options are highly dependent on having lots of lead time,

912
00:49:20,120 --> 00:49:22,759
Speaker 1: knowing way way in advance that it could be coming

913
00:49:22,800 --> 00:49:25,040
Speaker 1: our way. And this is yet again why the most

914
00:49:25,160 --> 00:49:29,439
Speaker 1: important thing in all of these solutions is improving our

915
00:49:29,800 --> 00:49:33,520
Speaker 1: survey and detection capabilities. I think we should come up

916
00:49:33,680 --> 00:49:36,960
Speaker 1: with with an asteroid character right now that can be

917
00:49:37,080 --> 00:49:40,200
Speaker 1: our stand in villain. So when the asteroid, when the

918
00:49:40,200 --> 00:49:42,800
Speaker 1: one appears that is a threat. We've got a ready

919
00:49:42,880 --> 00:49:47,440
Speaker 1: made like character in our mythology to pair it up with, right, Yeah,

920
00:49:47,600 --> 00:49:49,480
Speaker 1: you know, like, so you mentioned the Pixar movie you

921
00:49:49,480 --> 00:49:52,200
Speaker 1: gotta have the grumpy asteroid that gets paired with the

922
00:49:52,200 --> 00:49:55,640
Speaker 1: Manning Pixie space probe. Well, uh, you know, there are

923
00:49:55,640 --> 00:49:58,719
Speaker 1: a few different ways you could go in that. In

924
00:49:58,719 --> 00:50:00,799
Speaker 1: that in that area, I mean, obviously one turns to

925
00:50:00,880 --> 00:50:04,239
Speaker 1: comics and you think of of say, oh, what's the

926
00:50:04,239 --> 00:50:08,160
Speaker 1: big Marvel guy, the planet guy Galactus? Galactus is a

927
00:50:08,160 --> 00:50:10,680
Speaker 1: wonderful stand in for some sort of enormous cosmic threat.

928
00:50:10,760 --> 00:50:13,640
Speaker 1: Does Galactus eat planets? He eats planets? Seems the other

929
00:50:13,640 --> 00:50:15,799
Speaker 1: way around. Well, I mean it's like it's like a

930
00:50:15,800 --> 00:50:18,640
Speaker 1: poison pill that our planet would eat. Well, I think

931
00:50:18,680 --> 00:50:21,560
Speaker 1: the thing is, once Galactus gets to your planet, it's over.

932
00:50:22,040 --> 00:50:24,399
Speaker 1: Uh you know, it's it doesn't really matter exactly how

933
00:50:24,440 --> 00:50:26,880
Speaker 1: he you know, what happens. You just know you're doomed.

934
00:50:27,680 --> 00:50:30,399
Speaker 1: And and that's kind of the scenario with a significantly

935
00:50:30,640 --> 00:50:33,839
Speaker 1: sized asteroid. But one thing I do keep coming back

936
00:50:33,840 --> 00:50:36,200
Speaker 1: to with this topic, and I have over the years,

937
00:50:36,239 --> 00:50:40,600
Speaker 1: it's like we're talking about an actual threat to the

938
00:50:40,640 --> 00:50:47,320
Speaker 1: planet and efforts to mitigate that threat and to prevent

939
00:50:47,840 --> 00:50:49,960
Speaker 1: any of any objects from hitting us. And it's like

940
00:50:50,000 --> 00:50:53,359
Speaker 1: it is ultimately such a noble venture and again one

941
00:50:53,400 --> 00:50:57,319
Speaker 1: that we can all get behind and all celebrate. And

942
00:50:57,360 --> 00:51:01,440
Speaker 1: really it kind of serves as as an example. I mean,

943
00:51:01,440 --> 00:51:06,000
Speaker 1: it's it's almost like a perfectly romantic, uh simple problem

944
00:51:06,080 --> 00:51:08,879
Speaker 1: to have and in many respects, like, yes, they're technological

945
00:51:09,239 --> 00:51:13,400
Speaker 1: hurdles to overcome, but unlike so many more complicated problems

946
00:51:13,440 --> 00:51:16,120
Speaker 1: in uh, in human events and even in the you know,

947
00:51:16,160 --> 00:51:18,200
Speaker 1: the health of our planet, like, it's something with a

948
00:51:18,239 --> 00:51:22,480
Speaker 1: clear cut threat and some some basic steps that we

949
00:51:22,520 --> 00:51:25,920
Speaker 1: can continue to take to try and mitigate the danger.

950
00:51:26,000 --> 00:51:28,239
Speaker 1: I agree. It's like it's like the one noble war.

951
00:51:28,360 --> 00:51:30,840
Speaker 1: It's a you know, a war. It's a fight for

952
00:51:30,880 --> 00:51:34,160
Speaker 1: our lives, but without a human enemy. Right. Yeah. And

953
00:51:34,160 --> 00:51:36,160
Speaker 1: and also the next time you hear a bit of

954
00:51:36,200 --> 00:51:39,759
Speaker 1: space news that doesn't just completely like you know, fill

955
00:51:39,840 --> 00:51:43,200
Speaker 1: you with wonder and excitement where you're like, oh, well,

956
00:51:43,200 --> 00:51:46,120
Speaker 1: that's just I'm not particularly you know one over by

957
00:51:46,160 --> 00:51:48,040
Speaker 1: that it doesn't like, you know, fill me with the

958
00:51:48,160 --> 00:51:51,200
Speaker 1: zeal for space. Think back to the fact that it's

959
00:51:51,239 --> 00:51:54,960
Speaker 1: that's all a part of our ongoing attempt to better

960
00:51:55,080 --> 00:51:58,799
Speaker 1: understand understand our our local and overall uh you know,

961
00:51:58,840 --> 00:52:02,080
Speaker 1: galactic neighborhood. And by doing so, you know we're able

962
00:52:02,120 --> 00:52:04,440
Speaker 1: to protect the planet from threats like this again, to

963
00:52:04,520 --> 00:52:07,000
Speaker 1: protect ourselves against the wrath of Galactus or the wrath

964
00:52:07,040 --> 00:52:09,439
Speaker 1: of act Yeah, all right, we're gonna call it right there.

965
00:52:09,560 --> 00:52:11,160
Speaker 1: But as always, if you want to check out more

966
00:52:11,200 --> 00:52:12,839
Speaker 1: episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, head on over

967
00:52:12,840 --> 00:52:15,239
Speaker 1: to stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. And if

968
00:52:15,280 --> 00:52:16,920
Speaker 1: you want to support the show, the best thing you

969
00:52:16,920 --> 00:52:19,040
Speaker 1: can do is rate and review us wherever you have

970
00:52:19,080 --> 00:52:20,600
Speaker 1: the power to do so, and make sure you have

971
00:52:20,800 --> 00:52:24,120
Speaker 1: subscribed not only to this show but also Invention, which

972
00:52:24,200 --> 00:52:27,000
Speaker 1: is the other podcast that Joe and I host, where

973
00:52:27,040 --> 00:52:29,360
Speaker 1: each episode, one episode a week, we look at a

974
00:52:29,400 --> 00:52:33,320
Speaker 1: different invention from human techno history, discuss where it came from,

975
00:52:33,360 --> 00:52:36,279
Speaker 1: what came before, how do we possibly live before we had, say,

976
00:52:36,520 --> 00:52:40,440
Speaker 1: a toaster? And then how was life change forever afterwards?

977
00:52:41,040 --> 00:52:44,560
Speaker 1: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Maya Cole.

978
00:52:44,760 --> 00:52:46,279
Speaker 1: If you would like to get in touch with us

979
00:52:46,280 --> 00:52:48,640
Speaker 1: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

980
00:52:48,640 --> 00:52:50,800
Speaker 1: a topic for the future, for just to say hello,

981
00:52:50,880 --> 00:52:53,960
Speaker 1: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow

982
00:52:54,000 --> 00:53:05,200
Speaker 1: your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is

983
00:53:05,200 --> 00:53:07,560
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984
00:53:07,560 --> 00:53:10,000
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985
00:53:10,160 --> 00:53:21,680
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