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posted by martyb on Monday November 07 2016, @08:49AM   Printer-friendly
from the Lucifer's-Hammer dept.

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.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 08 2016, @03:48PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 08 2016, @03:48PM (#424101)

    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

    by butthurt (6141) on Saturday November 12 2016, @03:47AM (#425918) Journal

    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

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 21 2016, @01:39PM (#430494)

      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

        by butthurt (6141) on Monday November 21 2016, @01:56PM (#430504) Journal

        I took another look. I think you're right about those being aircraft.