Yes an asteroid will strike the earth and probably destroy all living things. Or will it? Not if we stop it. And we can do that--alter its course so it doesn't strike the earth. But one will definitely be on a collision course with earth--maybe soon, maybe later.
An asteroid the size of a football field flies between earth and the moon every month. Slightly smaller, once a week. Car-size, every day. And many reach our atmosphere, exploding like atomic bombs. Once a month they do that.
It is now believed that such falling firebombs caused the great Chicago fire (not Mrs. O'Leary's cow). Did you know there were a dozen other fires in the surrounding towns that night, with witnesses describing "fire from the sky?"
That proves that in current times, asteroids are causing destruction. So it's not just on a scale of millions of years. An asteroid killed the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. It's crater is in the Gulf of Mexico. Will one kill mankind, too? Scientists (using observational data) calculate that a huge asteroid like the dinosaur-extincting one is to be expected once every 50 million years. So we're 15 million years overdue to be extincted. (Not a word, but it fits.) One is due October 26, 2028. Read about it here.
But the world won't be smashed if we act now. Write your congressman to appropriate more money for "NEAT," the Near Earth Asteroid Watchers and "NEAR," the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous craft that is out there getting data. (See links below.)
The above is from a Learning Channel show I watched in April, 1997. On April 18, 1997, I saw a news story on Headline News about a meteorite that fell on a man's car in France at 3 A.M. No one was hurt, but there have been other auto-meteor mishaps in the news. Another one fell on a car in the U.S. in 1976. The car was worth maybe $10,000. The asteroid was sold by the startled owner for $50,000. Better bill paying through asteroids!
I am NOT chicken little. The Sky IS Falling!!!!
We are at risk from something huge. We are also at risk from something tiny--viruses and microbes. In 1996, one million died of aids. A lot, you say? Well, 3 million died of TB. We got rid of that, you say? Well, it mutated. Our drugs don't work anymore on that or malaria. The third world has rampant drug-resistant TB and malaria.
--from "The Coming Plague," 5-2-97 on TBS--
|
lavendar@bigfoot.com
Springfield, MO
United States