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Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on

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Speaker 1: iHeart Radio and welcome back to Coast to Coast George

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Speaker 1: nor with you along with Stephen Kate's doctor Sky. We're

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Speaker 1: going to chat with him for a little bit about

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Speaker 1: this December asteroid. There seems to be some concern about it,

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Speaker 1: but it's going to miss us by a while, Stephen,

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Speaker 1: won't it? Absolutely, George. They're saying two point four million miles,

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Speaker 1: which in astronomy, even though that seems like a big

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Speaker 1: number too many, it's a safe distance as opposed to

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Speaker 1: the asteroid that I just described before. And the problem

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Speaker 1: here is, and it's I guess a universal problem until

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Speaker 1: we can get better detention systems. How about that asteroid,

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Speaker 1: George that passed us, like I said, on October to

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Speaker 1: the twenty fourth, within eighteen hundred miles. Even if it's

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Speaker 1: as small as a refrigerator, the point is it was

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Speaker 1: discovered four hours after that's right, when they've already gotten

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Speaker 1: has gone past us disease. Absolutely, So what about something larger?

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Speaker 1: And for people out there curious about this, George about well,

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Speaker 1: maybe people may scratch in their head saying, well, why

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Speaker 1: can't they find these things, these particular asteroids are coming

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Speaker 1: from let's say, behind the sun. So in other words,

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Speaker 1: as we're looking in the daylight sky, let's say the

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Speaker 1: object is coming and sneaking up behind the sun. So

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Speaker 1: it's almost and I can't say impossible, but it's extremely

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Speaker 1: difficult for detection systems at least now, unless we have

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Speaker 1: something positioned out in space. And maybe there's some hope

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Speaker 1: that the Hubble space not the Hubble, but excive that

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Speaker 1: the James Web Telescope, once it's deployed, might be able

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Speaker 1: to give us, who knows, maybe even a better warning,

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Speaker 1: but its purpose is a little different. Well, I gotta

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Speaker 1: tell you, Stephen, this is incredible now in your opinion,

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Speaker 1: what are asteroids anyways? How are they formed? What are they?

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Speaker 1: Are they planets that are blown up or rocks that

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Speaker 1: have just never accumulated with other rocks. What are they? Well,

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Speaker 1: it's more likely towards that they never coalesced into a planet,

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Speaker 1: because when this whole proto Solar system formed about four

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Speaker 1: and a half billion years ago, many of the speculation

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Speaker 1: is out there. And I always had a hard time

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Speaker 1: in school understanding this concept. When you have objects that

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Speaker 1: form into planets, they say, over billions of years, gravitational

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Speaker 1: pressure and friction causes the thing to solidify. Well, what

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Speaker 1: these objects are in space are just debris that may

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Speaker 1: be never formulated, or one theory could be that it

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Speaker 1: was smacked by something even larger. And that asteroid belt,

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Speaker 1: as most people know from basic one to one astronomy,

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Speaker 1: is between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter for the

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Speaker 1: most part. So these asteroids that we're talking about now,

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Speaker 1: particularly this one nineteen eighty two dB or otherwise known

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Speaker 1: and its other stage name is forty six sixteen areas.

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Speaker 1: It's one of the asteroid groups called one of the

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Speaker 1: Apollo asteroids, So do not make this too complicated. There's

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Speaker 1: semi major axis of their orbit, there's some many major

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Speaker 1: orbit is actually greater than that of the Earth. So

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Speaker 1: what they do is they're swinging out beyond the Earth

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Speaker 1: and coming in near the Earth's orbit. One of many

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Speaker 1: types of asteroids, but simply George asteroids are probably remnants

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Speaker 1: of the Solar System creation that never formulated into planets,

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Speaker 1: and the largest one we know of is another of

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Speaker 1: the duar objects called series spelled ce Ris, probably about

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Speaker 1: the size of the state of Texas and it's one

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Speaker 1: of the most strange, one of the strangest objects in

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Speaker 1: my opinion, because its spherical as opposed to many of

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Speaker 1: these objects that looked like they're jagged and rough edge

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Speaker 1: like a potato. Now, the object that wiped out the

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Speaker 1: dinosaurs dinosaurs that was about what six kilometers which was

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Speaker 1: six but some say five to southern kilometers. And of

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Speaker 1: course this event happened twice in geologic history. A lot

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Speaker 1: of people think it just happened one sixty five million

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Speaker 1: years ago. It's thought very scientifically that this happened once before,

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Speaker 1: even another time period before that. But the one that

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Speaker 1: caused this chixeloupe event that they call it in the

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Speaker 1: area of the Gulf of Mexico is an object that

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Speaker 1: was probably about that size, and its impact was obviously

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Speaker 1: a global killer for the most part. I mean, I

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Speaker 1: imagine how the dinosaurs must have felt then. But the

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Speaker 1: Earth was hit and the strange description that people have

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Speaker 1: described about this event was nobody was there to do

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Speaker 1: it was that what happened was when it actually it

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Speaker 1: actually shattered and ripped the part of sky, but it

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Speaker 1: actually sucked up the atmosphere and everything with it and

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Speaker 1: formulated this big dark cloud around the earth for who

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Speaker 1: knows how long it lasted, but simply we know vegetation,

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Speaker 1: animal life ceased to exist from just an object that

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Speaker 1: was maybe five to seven kilometers and thoughts. There was

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Speaker 1: an object a few years ago over a Russia that

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Speaker 1: kind of blew up before. It didn't hit the ground,

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Speaker 1: but it blew up in the atmosphere. But a lot

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Speaker 1: of people were injured because of that concussion. Absolutely, and

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Speaker 1: that's the Chixeloup event that we're talking about. No, that

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Speaker 1: was the Chilibenzk event. Excuse me, I guess it was

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Speaker 1: the Cheliobenzk event. And this happened, as we know, back

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Speaker 1: in twenty thirteen. And what's amazing about it, George, is

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Speaker 1: that the object was sixty six aged sixty six feet

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Speaker 1: in diameter. And the story about how people went to

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Speaker 1: the hospital were injured, it was not from the debris.

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Speaker 1: It was from the actual sonic boom an explosion that

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Speaker 1: this object caused. So even an object sixty six feet

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Speaker 1: in diameter, nicol iron or stony iron or stony material

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Speaker 1: caused that much damage. And we know here in Arizona,

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Speaker 1: the great tourist attraction is still and I love it

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Speaker 1: every time I go there, and I'm sure people have

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Speaker 1: seen it, or we'll see it as the Great Arizona

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Speaker 1: meteor crater that was allegedly formed fifty thousand years ago

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Speaker 1: by an object. Now I'll get a look of this, folks,

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Speaker 1: and George, some two hundred feet in diameter, causing at

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Speaker 1: least a mileish or so crater here on the Earth.

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Speaker 1: And it's still one of the freshest craters that we

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Speaker 1: can actually study, and there's a lot of story about that.

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Speaker 1: It's just an amazing site from something two hundred feet

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Speaker 1: allegedly across Steve. Does gravity pull in asteroids too, Absolutely,

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Speaker 1: and one of the things we should be grateful for

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Speaker 1: when you go outside at night. And as I mentioned

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Speaker 1: always in our Live Sky edition here to give men.

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Speaker 1: By the way, people tell me, George that they love

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Speaker 1: that part of this report because it's stuff you can

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Speaker 1: actually see, because obviously there's so much science out there.

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Speaker 1: I wish we had more time, but I'm grateful for

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Speaker 1: the time we have now. But yes, gravity is a

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Speaker 1: main thing as far as what happens with these asteroids,

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Speaker 1: the gravitational force of not only the Sun, but mentioning Jupiter, Jupiter,

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Speaker 1: if it were not there. Many astronomers simply believe in

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Speaker 1: scientists know that Jupiter is like this great magnet for objects.

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Speaker 1: So gravity, of course does affect it. And within the

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Speaker 1: last year or two, George and visually, I know some

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Speaker 1: people around the world that have video cameras when they're

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Speaker 1: observing Jupiter in the telescope, and what they see, or

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Speaker 1: what they saw is very infrequent, is large flashes that

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Speaker 1: happen on the surface of the cloud top. So what's

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Speaker 1: happening is Jupiter's like a giant vacuum cleaner, and we

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Speaker 1: should be grateful for it. But let's keep it far

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Speaker 1: enough away. It's over four hundred million miles away now.

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Speaker 1: But obviously if we were to get close to it,

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Speaker 1: as we would say the Moon, it's intense gravity and

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Speaker 1: it's intense radiation would obviously make us not have a

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Speaker 1: good day. It is amazing. It really is. The Tunguska

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Speaker 1: Blast of nineteen oh eight. Why is it everything happens

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Speaker 1: over Russia? Well, I guess because here's a simple answer.

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Speaker 1: It's so large, and if it has one I'm not

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Speaker 1: sure of this, but what ten or twelve time zones.

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Speaker 1: That's pretty big, And obviously we just got off daylight

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Speaker 1: saving time for a good part of the United States,

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Speaker 1: except for Arizona, of course. But here, George, this is

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Speaker 1: something interesting. That event June thirtieth, nineteen oh eight still

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Speaker 1: goes down in the record book is one of the

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Speaker 1: most amazing event of all time. It's theoretically could be

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Speaker 1: a chunk of a comet. Some thought comet inky, some

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Speaker 1: thought even in the most bizarre explanation, but I can't

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Speaker 1: rule it out that it was an interplanetary spacecraft that

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Speaker 1: I think exploded over the Earth. Who knows, but from

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Speaker 1: the asteroid section in astronomy, that event level tree is

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Speaker 1: about the size of the state of Connecticut. And it

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Speaker 1: wasn't until the nineteen twenties that somebody actually went there

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Speaker 1: a scientific expedition, and they looked and they saw this

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Speaker 1: amazing destruction from an object that didn't hit the Earth, George,

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Speaker 1: but it did. It was an air burst like that

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Speaker 1: of a nuclear weapon. And who knows on the megaton

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Speaker 1: scale how big it was, but probably bigger or larger

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Speaker 1: than Russia's largest event in its atmospheric test called Zarbomba,

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Speaker 1: which supposedly was one hundred megaton explosion. These things, obviously

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Speaker 1: we hope don't happen in our near future. But I

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Speaker 1: know there's a movie coming out. I think it's I'm

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Speaker 1: trying to think of it is Leonardo DiCaprio. It's about

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Speaker 1: I don't know the title, forgive me, folks in George,

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Speaker 1: but it's something about look at the sky, and it's

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Speaker 1: about an obvious comet or asteroid that comes to strength

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Speaker 1: the Earth. Here we go again, right, what did you

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Speaker 1: think of the movie with Bruce Willis where he was

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Speaker 1: on an asteroid and stayed to blow it up to

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Speaker 1: save the planet. Well, I thought he did a great job.

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Speaker 1: But it's all in the fi world. But I mean,

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Speaker 1: is that conceivable? Well it let me say this. I

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Speaker 1: don't believe truly that we could stand on the surface

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Speaker 1: of an asteroid comet for a long time, but I

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Speaker 1: think they got it right, particularly with the comet, because

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Speaker 1: here we go, this thing was venting gases, and I

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Speaker 1: remember going back in my time tunnel that if you

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Speaker 1: look at the surface of one of these objects, you

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Speaker 1: see him standing on a thing that looks like it

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Speaker 1: as Geyser's. I don't think we could conceivably stand there,

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Speaker 1: So it's probably going to have to be some sort

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Speaker 1: of robotic craft, and they're describing this. I mean you've

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Speaker 1: you've heard this, I'm sure a million times, George, that

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Speaker 1: they even have the concept now of using nuclear warheads

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Speaker 1: to do deflection, and years ago that was considered to

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Speaker 1: be one of the most ludicrous concepts. And again, the

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Speaker 1: theory about not doing it, or the reason not to

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Speaker 1: do it, is you blow something up like that and

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Speaker 1: you create a whole lot of chilly bink and a

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Speaker 1: lot of other things, maybe like the Tunguska event coming

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Speaker 1: from a singular object. By destroying it, you're probably asking

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Speaker 1: for a lot more trouble. But simply to answer your question,

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Speaker 1: I thought the movie was great, But that's something that

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Speaker 1: maybe in the next twenty or thirty years we might

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Speaker 1: be able to do. But I don't think right yet.

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Speaker 1: Well can you imagine what would happen? Oh my gosh,

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Speaker 1: if you're right, if they blew up an asteroid and

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Speaker 1: we had thousands of sixty six feet two mile pieces

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Speaker 1: coming our way. Well, George, there's another theoretical thing. And

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Speaker 1: I don't want to scare people out there. It's never

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Speaker 1: my mission and never yours. We just want to inform them.

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Speaker 1: But imagine this let's say an object the size of

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Speaker 1: let's say the much smaller than Chizeloube the great sixty

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Speaker 1: five million year ago event. Let's say we had an

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Speaker 1: object maybe larger than the Chilubinsk event, maybe bigger than Tunguska,

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Speaker 1: and it actually struck the Moon. Now, from astronomers and skywatchers,

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Speaker 1: that'd be one hell of a view because you'd see

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Speaker 1: this material just hit the surface of the Moon. But

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Speaker 1: look at all that residual material that would be heading

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Speaker 1: our way too. So we're lucky that the Moon hasn't

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Speaker 1: been hit or an object like the Earth. That's frequently

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Speaker 1: because obviously the Moon has minimal, minimalist atmosphere, if you

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Speaker 1: want to call it at all. It is a tiny,

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Speaker 1: tiny atmosphere, hardly nexibly measurable. But the Earth obviously with

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Speaker 1: its atmosphere, has protected us from some of the smaller events.

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Speaker 1: But that would be pretty catastrophic too. An object striking

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Speaker 1: the lunar surface, you would put on a great sky show.

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Speaker 1: But then hold on, folks, hold onto your hat, because

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Speaker 1: the residual debris would be coming probably within a day,

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Speaker 1: maybe even shorter than that, headed our direction. Listen to

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Speaker 1: more coast to coast AM every weeknight at one am

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Speaker 1: Eastern and go to coast to coast am dot com

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Speaker 1: for more