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03-10-2009, 08:22 AM | #1 |
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No Action Speaks Louder than Words
Hi Everybody,
I was away from the forum over the weekend (as is my norm) so this little piece took some time for me to post. If this subject has already been touched upon then forgive me. 2009 DD45 came extremely close to Earth last Monday (Feb. 24) dangerously so. If this asteroid had collided with our planet it would have created an explosion 1000 times more than the A Bomb and could have wiped out a city, certainly the size of São Paulo (Brazil) or Mexico City. Okay the scare has passed us by. Was this the elusive Planet X that we have come to hear about or will there be more to come? More importantly, astronomers only 'realized' the fact two days before and of course did not inform the media until after the 'horse had bolted'. Apparently a new telescope has been inaugurated in Hawaai last December exactly for this purpose. Which leads to another question; Why this new telescope? Are astronomers waiting for something? The final question is more important than any other. Will astronomers inform the world that impact is imminent, even if they saw a huge asteroid coming our way? Or would they just keep on the lookout for survivors? Best regards, Steve |
03-10-2009, 01:48 PM | #2 |
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Re: No Action Speaks Louder than Words
It may be that when the NEO telescopes finally saw the asteroid and realized it's "collision path" was 44,000 miles away from earth, they saw no reason to sound an alarm.
TBH, unless they knew it was going to hit, and likely WHERE it was going to hit, speculating about it probably isn't going to accomplish much other than scaring people. JMHO alys |
03-10-2009, 02:14 PM | #3 | |
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Re: No Action Speaks Louder than Words
Hi alyscat,
I understand what you're saying. I'm not trying to go against your argument, just playing Devils' Advocate here. When I was a kid, every year we had a fire drill at school. We never had a fire and nobody ever freaked out. In Japan they have earthquake drills. Nobody freaks out during these drills and I imagine that during an earthquake less people freaked out than if there wasn't a drill. There has been a serious threat for New Orleans for years about the possibilities of flooding. Nothing was done about it and history has shown what happened. What's my point? Education, even 'war games' can do a lot to quash a lot of possible problems in the event of a national or international tradgedy. Putting things on the back burner will only create problems in the future. Hysteria is very difficult to control, controlled hysteria is a lot easier. If there is anything out there, it would be very wrong for the people who know to leave the general public ignorant. I'm not speaking only of the US here, I'm on about the whole world. The countries could play out these scenarios with the miltary etc.. The least that could happen is that the armed forces and agencies will be better trained to organize themselves in any kind of natural disaster, even major ones. Best regards, Steve Quote:
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03-10-2009, 02:40 PM | #4 |
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Re: No Action Speaks Louder than Words
Oh, Steve, I don't take your comments as a disagreement - but we do have disaster drills here in the US with the military and civilian organizations (fire and EMS and so on), on a pretty regular basis, although until the disaster hits, you don't know how helpful they will be. The drills sometime make the national MSM, too.
Just as the scientists have a pretty good idea of where a falling satellite will splash down, if not exactly, it's possible they may have known this was going to be a "close but no cigar" thing. I agree, we do need to be prepared, and if possible, get out of town. I just posted an article in the news section about our own lack of knowingness. alys |
03-10-2009, 04:32 PM | #5 | |
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Re: No Action Speaks Louder than Words
Quote:
I see your point Steve ... So if regular drills/practice causes people not to re-act hysterically then why not save an event like this for future, say when you WANT the masses to be hysterical. So if we assume they knew that this object wouldn't hit us dont even report it - save it for future use. Its like the boy who cried wolf, if they kept telling us of the near earth misses people would beome desensitised/not care. Maybe thats why they didnt tell us ... until it had passed at least. Peace Regards Iain |
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03-10-2009, 07:38 PM | #6 |
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Re: No Action Speaks Louder than Words
good post steve!
thanks! ive got more to say, but i wanted to get subscribed for now, |
03-10-2009, 09:23 PM | #7 |
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Re: No Action Speaks Louder than Words
There was another thread on this but I couldn't find it, Here's a site to check...... http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/ca/
It has charts and tables of all objects! Last edited by Dantheman62; 03-10-2009 at 09:25 PM. |
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