Yikes. A couple weeks ago while lying on the couch moaning from being sick I thought I’d do something uplifting and watched a History Channel documentary on the space object that exploded over Siberia on June 30, 1908. There is still considerable debate over exactly what the object was — but if you’d been nearby it probably wouldn’t have mattered to you a great deal if it was a meteorite, comet or something else that gave off energy equivalent to 1,500 Hiroshima bombs.
And that was pretty minor all things considering. If an asteroid just 10km in diameter hit the plant at the right angle going 30km/s, the resulting explosion would be equal to about 15 billion Hiroshima’s (i.e. pretty much say goodbye to life as you know it).
Now comes a new report that the number of near earth asteroids has been underestimated by as much as 20 percent. Yikes. Head for cover.
(On the other hand, you have to love the BBC running this self-evident statement, “But no-one knows exactly how many undiscovered asteroids are out there.” Umm, isn’t it impossible by definition to know how many undiscovered things there are?)