Planning for Star Wars: space threat experts still watching the skies

With governmental concern focused more on Armageddon of the financial kind over the past couple of years, it may sound like a costly extravagance to talk about asteroid-detection and deflection systems.

The end of the world, however, isn't something that is particularly concerned about whether we can afford to thwart it or not. Thankfully, the issue of global destruction at the hands of a sizeable lump of space rock has not dropped off the scientific radar. Late last month, representatives of the American, Russian and other national space programs met for three days at the European Space Agency's Space Operations Center in Darmstadt, Germany.

Their goal is to put together a Mission Planning and Operations Group (MPOG) to develop a global asteroid threat response. Participants studied several plausible impact scenarios to identify best responses to such an emergency.

Earlier John Holdren, President Obama's science and technology adviser, sent the House Committee on Science and Technology a letter calling for NASA to play a leading role in detecting and deflecting deep-space objects that threaten Earth.

Former Apollo 9 astronaut Rusty Schweickart attended the Darmstadt meeting and told Space.com that disastrous asteroid impacts "can be prevented ... only, however, if we properly prepare and work together with other nations around the world."

Hit me baby one more time: asteroid impact calculator updated

It's a dubious curiosity, but have you ever wondered what would happen if a 10km-wide asteroid came out of the sky and slammed down on your city?

Well now you can, thanks to the nicely-updated impact effects calculator, first produced by scientists at Purdue University and Imperial College London in 2004.

By filling in the details of angle, mass, speed and impact site you can get an idea of how devastating - or otherwise - an asteroid impact would be.

After the first go, it's kind of irresistable seeing just how much devastation one can cause ...

WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!!!!!!!

And we are BACK ...

And what better way to return from our usual hiatus (during which we've been plotting the next issue of THE END IS NIGH) than the news that we have ONLY A MATTER OF YEARS LEFT TO EXIST!!!!!

Well, 1.5 million years, at any rate ...

there is 86 percent chance that Gliese 710 will plough through the Oort Cloud of frozen stuff that extends some 0.5 parsecs into space.

That may sound like a graze but it is likely to have serious consequences. Such an approach would send an almighty shower of comets into the Solar System which will force us to keep our heads down for a while. And a probability of 86 percent is about as close to certainty as this kind of data can get.

The good news is that Bobylev says the chances of Gliese 710 penetrating further into the Solar System, inside the Kuiper Belt, are much smaller, just 1 in a 1000. So that's all right, then.

Keep calm and carry on.

And don't forget that you can still order your very own copy of THE END IS NIGH #4 by going to www.endisnigh.co.uk and clicking on 'BUY'. G'warn, do it - you know you want to!

The computer says no ...

As pointed out in our latest issue, the year 2000 seemingly taught nobody anything. While we don't have a Y2K bug to scare us, that's not stopped the hype surrounding December 21st, 2012 from getting out of all proportion - even with more than a 1,000 days still to go.

What marks this one out as unusual is that NASA scientists have been forced to issue what constitutes the most comprehensive denial in history, after continually being deluged with queries from concerned citizens, demanding reassurance that they'll see at least another three Christmases.

Q: How do NASA scientists feel about claims of pending doomsday?
A: For any claims of disaster or dramatic changes in 2012, where is the science? Where is the evidence? There is none, and for all the fictional assertions, whether they are made in books, movies, documentaries or over the Internet, we cannot change that simple fact. There is no credible evidence for any of the assertions made in support of unusual events taking place in December 2012.

Well, thank goodness for that ...

1,200 and counting ...

Since we're *just* 1,200 days away from 21st December 2012, it seems fitting to revisit this particular apocalyptic curio.

Since the year 2000 turned out to be such a disappointment, 21/12/12 has increasingly become the new focus point for the apocalyptic community, apparently all based on the idea that the Mayan civilisation's calendar 'predicts' either the end of the world or, at the very least, some major event in world history. Armed with this snippet of half-baked information, every preacher and New Age crystal therapist under the sun has their own prediction about what WILL UNDOUBTEDLY HAPPEN!!

But who to trust? Do you believe those who reckon we're due an alien invasion or that it's The True Dawning of the Age of Aquarius or that it's finally the Rapture?

So it is with some relief that 'NY Times Bestselling author' Gregg Braden's Fractal Time: The Secret of 2012 and a New World Age cuts through the crap and tells us what we need to know, by revealing this little 'fact':

"On December 21, 2012, Earth will be perfectly aligned with the galactic center for the first time in over 5000 years — and attuned to the source energy of the Milky Way. Gregg believes this heralds "a rare opportunity to come together as a family on this planet, and to learn from the mistakes of past civilizations."

So there you go.

It's cold outside, there's no kind of atmosphere ...

While the rest of us are understandably concerned at the cheery news that the effect of global warming heating the oceans could cause Earth's axis to tilt,we now find the NASA scientists have suggested that the best way to stop our planet from overheating would be to move it to a cooler spot!

All you have to do is hurtle a few comets at Earth, and its orbit will be altered. Our world will then be sent spinning into a safer, colder part of the solar system.

Well, that's alright then ... !

Greg Laughlin, Don Korycansky and Fred Adams of the Nasa Ames Research Center in California came up with the plan, which involves carefully directing a comet or asteroid so that it sweeps close past Earth and transfers some of its gravitational energy to Earth, nudging it slightly away from the Sun. Since life on Earth is able to thrive thanks to the planet's position in our solar system's Goldilocks Zone ("not too hot, not too cold"), shifting it around to control temperatures isn't that crazy. Actually, scratch that - read further into the article and you'll soon realise just HOW crazy it actually is ...

Engineers would have to be very careful about how they directed their asteroid or comet towards Earth. The slightest miscalculation in orbit could fire it straight at Earth – with devastating consequences.

It is a point acknowledged by the group. ‘The collision of a 100-kilometre diameter object with the Earth at cosmic velocity would sterilise the biosphere most effectively, at least to the level of bacteria,’ they state in a paper in Astrophysics and Space Science. ‘The danger cannot be overemphasised.’

There is also the vexed question of the Moon. As the current issue of Scientific American points out, if Earth was pushed out of its current position it is ‘most likely the Moon would be stripped away from Earth,’ it states, radically upsetting out planet’s climate.

The End will be Twittered ...

Tonight, why not pop ouside and have a look up at the night sky. Assuming it's a clear night, it's pretty isn't it?

Unfortunately, all those stars may look glittery, timeless and above all else, stationary, but we're in a crowded neighbourhood and there's quite a few lumps of spinning rock out there with 'To whom it may concern' stamped on the side.

According to Wired's The Real Twitpocalypse: Asteroid Alerts Come to Twitter, NASA has set up its own Asteroid Watch Twitter feed to keep you up to date on all the comets, asteroids, and other celestial objects that pose a threat to the Earth. The feed is a companion to the newly-launched Asteroid Watch website, operated by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

So that's a relief. We already guessed Twitter was a sign of The End, but who knew it'd be the first place we'd hear of it?

And if you're looking for recent near-misses, you can also check out Tom Taylor's lowflyingrocks feed.

Let the sun shine, let the sun shine ... AARRGGHH!! It burns!!

While scientists remain baffled about just how low the sun's activity has got during its regular 'solar minimum', that's not stopped others deciding that its current quiet period is THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM!!!! Thanks to this little piece of solar scaremongering, we now know that "The sun is unusually quiet right now and has been for some time but there should be an increase in solar activity at some point in the near future."

The best bit, though, is the leap of logic (in the 'leap buildings in a single bound' sense) from the knowledge of a 'solar maximum' to this: "The best current scientific estimate for the next solar maximum is 2012. If this estimate is correct, there is still a few years to try and prevent the potential of a future global disaster. A disaster that would begin on the surface of the sun and could end with tragedy on earth.

However, we prefer to turn to NASA, who have said that although sunspot counts should pick up again soon, the solar maximum in 2012 or 2013 should be of "below-average intensity".

'Close shave' by space rock

An asteroid which may be as big as a ten-storey building has passed close by the Earth, astronomers say. The object, known as 2009 DD45, thought to be 21-47m (68-152ft) across, raced by our planet at 1344 GMT on Monday.

The gap was just 72,000 km (44,750 miles); a fifth of the distance between our planet and the Moon.

International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Centre (MPC), which catalogues Solar System objects, lists the closest recent flyby as 2004 FU162, a small asteroid about 6m (20ft) across which came within about 6,500km (4,000 miles) of our planet in March 2004. The latest object, 2009 DD45, passed by our planet at only twice the altitude of satellites in geosynchronous orbit.

Keep watching the skies!

Chicken Lickin' wasn't kidding ...

World 'must tackle space threat'

The international community must work together to tackle the threat of asteroids colliding with Earth, a leading UN scientist says.

Professor Richard Crowther's comments come as a group of space experts called for a co-ordinated science-led response to the asteroid threat.

The Association of Space Explorers (ASE) says missions to intercept asteroids will need global approval.

The UN will meet in February to discuss the issue.