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There's no need to panic; NASA and FEMA have a plan to respond to a potential asteroid collision:
It's a scary scenario: an asteroid headed for Earth, just four years away from slamming into our home planet. It may be too short a span to plan an asteroid-deflection mission, but it's long enough to present very different challenges from those of a more typical crisis, like a hurricane or earthquake.
NASA and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) came together Oct. 25 to plan a response to such a hypothetical event. In a "tabletop exercise," a kind of ongoing simulation, the two agencies tested how they would work together to evaluate the threat, prevent panic and protect as many people as possible from the deadly collision.
"It's not a matter of if, but when, we will deal with such a situation," Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA's Science Mission Directorate's new associate administrator, said in a statement. "But unlike any other time in our history, we now have the ability to respond to an impact threat through continued observations, predictions, response planning and mitigation."
Also at JPL.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 07 2016, @11:18PM
I'll bite.
Yes. And it does work that way. Meteorites and bolides come from virtually any direction..... except that the Earth travels in a particular direction, so it isn't easy for a meteor to "sneak up" from behind.... but even that happens.
Now, why don't you see it "going up?" Well, point at the horizon. No, you're pointing at a patch of sky, aren't you? The sky is "up," ain't it? Even if you do have a perfectly level and flat horizon to 50 miles out, you're pointing at some patch of sky, not earth. Now, meteorite starts flying past. Draw a line with your finger in the sky. While that line may have seemed to start above the horizon - and it may - at night you're not going to notice that the streak (or fireball) going through the sky is going "up" relative to the hemisphere and your orientation. If it's coming from the East, guarantee it is "going up." Just as going to the West is "going down." Unless you're actually in the horizonal footprint of impact and the meteorite actually impacts -- which is *rare.* ("If you find the stone and saw the meteorite fall, it's *not* a meteorite." Because that's true 99.999999999999999999999999999999999997% of the time.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 08 2016, @03:48PM
Yes. And it does work that way.
This is not an answer (unless your answer is that "it is rare", and "because it works this way"). The question is fair and simple, and you carefully avoid answering it: why a shooting star is NEVER observed to intersect the horizon, on its way UP.
Geometry and probability dictates that this should be very common, and in parity. But it is not, which renders the model ripe for debate.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Saturday November 12 2016, @03:47AM
This GIF animation shows meteors appearing from below the horizon.
https://heiscomingblog.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/animated-shower.gif [wordpress.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 21 2016, @01:39PM
Where? I don't see it, I see streaks that are caused by aircraft lights.
Also, what is up with all this prophecy stuff in this website?
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Monday November 21 2016, @01:56PM
I took another look. I think you're right about those being aircraft.