Apophis

Apophis

Astronauts talking from the movie Deep Impact...
Mark: How do we set the nukes inside the comet and get out before they blow?
Orin Monash: We don't.
Andrea: Look on the bright side. We'll all have high schools named after us.

One of the open questions in science is, "Where are all the aliens?"  Given the immense number of stars and all the planets we are busily detecting, it just does not make sense that we are alone. There are four popular theories that I know of:

1. Stay hidden or else the militaristic aliens will get you
2. Intelligent machines eventually take over each planet
3. Periodic supernova sterilize regions of galaxies
4. Civilization is wiped out by a meteor impact

We know that Earth has been hit by meteors in the past - some of them were pretty big as in Arizona and the Yucatan. NASA takes seriously the chance that it will happen again by tracking the path of all known asteroids.

Presently all eyes are on asteroid, Apophis. In 2004, NASA scientists announced that Apophis, an asteroid larger than two football fields, could possibly smash into Earth in 2029. After taking more measurements, NASA decided that Apophis will pass by the Earth on April 13, 2029 at a distance of five earth widths. Very close! The moon is about 30 earth widths away.

This year Russian scientists have predicted that the 2029 fly-by will alter the orbit of Apophis in such a way that it will collide with Earth in 2036. NASA is not convinced. They put the odds of this happening at 1 in 250,000. About the same odds as a person being hit by lightening in a given year. (Though I have seen various odds for lightening 1/250K, 1/500K, 1/750K per year per person.)

Bottom Line

You can bet that when Apophis makes its next fly-by in late 2012 it will be extensively observed with ground-based telescopes and radars. If improved calculations put it on a destructive path, NASA will have 24 years to find a way to alter the asteroid’s orbit. Unlike the movies, blowing it up with nuclear bombs is not a good solution - this just changes the impact from one big rock to many smaller rocks. The best hope is to nudge it or push it into a safe orbit.

Preparing your Feet for Disasters

“A radical is a person with both feet firmly planted in the air.” - anon

Today I recommend the article Preparing Your Feet for TEOTWAWKI, by The Surgeon. It has too many excellent details about foot care to summarize here so go read it (you’ll have to scroll down past the annoying ad that fills the screen).

Bottom Line
We take our feet and ankles for granted until they fail us. While it’s possible to put an arm in a sling and let it heal, it is MUCH harder to heal a leg injury in the knee, ankle or foot. Even with a crutch you’ll find yourself putting weight on the injury and slowing the healing process.
When 9-11 hit NYC many people walked out of the city to friends or to home; a distance of many miles. I was working on 50th street at the time and when our company closed for the day and everyone told to go home (evacuate), I was amazed as I walked south to Grand Central Station to catch a train. I felt like a salmon going upstream as 5th Ave and Madison Ave were filled with thousands of people all walking north. I learned afterwards that the mayor had ordered a complete evacuation of lower Manhattan. With subways closed or overwhelmed, that left walking.
The lesson I learned from this was to keep a pair of sneakers in my desk drawer at work just in case. I once walked a few miles in dress shoes and got terrible blisters.

P.S. TEOTWAWKI = The End of The World As We Know It.

When the Sun Attacks

"There are only two forces that can carry light to all the corners of the globe - only two - the sun in the heavens and the Associated Press down here." - Mark Twain

From Instapundit is yet another item to add to your list of TEOTWAWKI:

"Did you know a solar flare can make your toilet stop working?"

In a 132-page report from a NASA funded study, experts detail what might happen to our modern, high-tech society in the event of a “super solar flare.”

Ground currents induced during geomagnetic storms can actually melt the copper windings of transformers at the heart of many power distribution systems. Sprawling power lines act like antennas, picking up the currents and spreading the problem over a wide area. The most famous geomagnetic power outage happened during a space storm in March 1989 when six million people in Quebec lost power for 9 hours.

In 1859 the largest know solar flare triggered an explosion along electrified telegraph lines, shocking technicians and setting their telegraph papers on fire. If that same massive flare occurred today,

Power outages would be accompanied by radio blackouts and satellite malfunctions; telecommunications, GPS navigation, banking and finance, and transportation would all be affected. ... The total economic impact in the first year alone could reach $2 trillion, some 20 times greater than the costs of a Hurricane Katrina

Bottom Line

It's a good idea to have your computer, TV and any expensive electronics connected to a circuit breaker. This may protect them from power surges and nearby lightning strikes. But don't count on the breakers saving you from a monster solar flare; they will probably melt.

TEOTWAWKI

"TEOTWAWKI" - The End of the World as We Know It

As I browse and read survival/preparedness blogs I keep seeing the acronym, TEOTWAWKI. For example:

• http://eatatdixiebelles.blogspot.com/2008/10/be-prepared-why.html
• http://chilechews.blogspot.com/2008/10/be-prepared-for-medical-emergencies.html

It took a few minutes to figure it out that TEOTWAWKI means "The End of the World as We Know It". Personally I don't expect the world to end or that civilization will collapse in my lifetime. However life as we know it can be disrupted on a temporary and local scale. Examples include hurricanes, the East Coast blackout, 9-11, and so on.
When I commuted to work in New York City I traveled by the Metro North railroad. Both 9-11 and the Blackout events stopped the trains and I was stranded at my office 30 miles from home. In both cases the nature of the emergency made it dangerous or impossible for my wife to drive into the city to pick me up. Taxis were a scarce resource during these crises. So life as I knew it was seriously disrupted.
A recent example is the gasoline shortages in southern states after hurricane Ike. Your daily commute, driving kids to school, grocery shopping may all depend on having gas in your car but no gas is available.

BOTTOM LINE
Life as we know it depends on many things that we take for granted - electricity, clean water, gasoline, banks & ATMs, roads, schools, sewers, etc. For a nice list of reasonable things that can go wrong, see Be Prepared! Why... by Dixiebelle.