Watch the sky

July 3, 2006 at 1:48 am (Uncategorized)

 

WE INTERRUPT THIS BLOG FOR AN EMERGENCY ANNOUNCEMENT. THIS MORNING, ASTEROID XP14 CHANGED ITS COURSE AND IS NOW EXPECTED TO IMPACT WITH EARTH AS EARLY AS TUESDAY AFTERNOON. COSMOLOGIST TRACKING THE HALF MILE ASTEROID ANTICIPATE IT WILL CRASH INTO NORTHERN NEW ENGLAND AT APPROXIMATELY TEN MILES PER SECOND. SCIENTISTS FROM AROUND THE WORLD WERE TRACKING XP14 AND FEDERAL SOURCES HAVE SAID THERE IS NO RECOURSE FOR DEFENDING THE PLANET. THE COLLISION IS EXPECTED TO CAUSE GLOBAL DEVASTATION, WITH A POTENTIAL FOR DESTRUCTION SIMILAR TO THE COMET IMPACT BELIEVED TO HAVE CAUSED THE MASS EXTINCTION OF DINOSAURS AND OTHER PLANETARY LIFE 65 MILLION YEARS AGO. PEOPLE AROUND THE WORLD WERE ADVISED TO BRACE THEMSELVES FOR MASS DEATHS, POLITICAL UPHEAVAL AND DRASTIC CLIMATE CHANGE. THOSE IN NEW ENGLAND WERE ADVISED TO KISS THEIR COLLECTIVE ASS GOODBYE.

If you’re sitting at your table having coffee this morning, consider yourself lucky. The smallest cosmic influence could have rendered the above statement absolutely valid. If you are blissfully unaware of the brush with extinction, here are the basic elements of the dramatic near miss.

AP- An asteroid up to half a mile wide was due to have brushed past the Earth early today, approaching almost as close as the Moon. In astronomical terms, that counts as a near miss, but scientists who had been tracking the path of asteroid 2004 XP14 were not worried as it approached at about ten miles per second. Nevertheless, the body has been classified as a potentially hazardous asteroid (PHA) along with 782 known others.

I spent a good part of the evening staring up into the sky, waiting for the doomsday fireball from above. It’s part melodrama, sure. All of the astronomers stated boldly that the chances of an earth impact are nil. But do I trust them unconditionally with my ass? Nosiree, I don’t. We’re talking about 290,000 miles, for one thing. In terms of the universe, that’s a fraction of an inch. For another, nobody knows what this big ass rock is made of. Who’s to say how vulnerable it is to solar winds or other cosmic forces? A change in orbit just a thousandth of an inch could push that mountain right into our path. We’d be like birds sitting on a railroad track. Your drinking coffee and playing computer solitaire one moment and then WHAP! It’s over, people. See you at the Pearly Gates or whatever is out there for us.

Almost worse, we could survive the destruction. But it would be surviving to live in a state of purgatory at best. The impact would send a cloud of dust into the sky and that cloud would circle the planet, blocking out the sun. We’d live in perpetual winter night. Half the species on the planet would perish. Crops would die, oceans would freeze, survivors would become like primitives, beating each other over the heads with clubs for morsels of rotting dog meat. Even if billions lived through the destruction, societies would crumble and our sense of humanity would be loss. That random rock from deep space would mark first the devolution of humankind and then more likely than not, the elimination of it. And what a short reign it was. The dinosaurs lasted 165 on this planet. Relatively speaking, we just checked in — our primitive bloggers, who wrote their insipid thoughts on cave walls rather than computer screens, only arrived two million years ago.

While you may not be quaking in your shoes just yet, you have to admit it IS something to think about over your latte or Bloody Mary this morning. Everything we’ve achieved as a species (we’re just getting around to Internet porn, for chrissakes!) could go out like a candle. And all because of some cosmic computation that sent a speck of space dust hurtling in our direction.

So it becomes that old party question: if you look up in the sky this afternoon and see that growing shadow bearing down, how will you spend your final hours? And what will you regret the most?