UH OH- Sobering Data on Asteroid Impacts

[stromboli]

http://phys.org/news/2014-04-astronauts-reveal-sobering-asteroid-impacts.html

This Earth Day, Tuesday, April 22, three former NASA astronauts will present new evidence that our planet has experienced many more large-scale asteroid impacts over the past decade than previously thought… three to ten times more, in fact. A new visualization of data from a nuclear weapons warning network, to be unveiled by B612 Foundation CEO Ed Lu during the evening event at Seattle's Museum of Flight, shows that "the only thing preventing a catastrophe from a 'city-killer' sized asteroid is blind luck."

Since 2001, 26 atomic-bomb-scale explosions have occurred in remote locations around the world, far from populated areas, made evident by a nuclear weapons test warning network. In a recent press release B612 Foundation CEO Ed Lu states:
"This network has detected 26 multi-kiloton explosions since 2001, all of which are due to asteroid impacts. It shows that asteroid impacts are NOT rareâ€"but actually 3-10 times more common than we previously thought. The fact that none of these asteroid impacts shown in the video was detected in advance is proof that the only thing preventing a catastrophe from a 'city-killer' sized asteroid is blind luck. The goal of the B612 Sentinel mission is to find and track asteroids decades before they hit Earth, allowing us to easily deflect them."
The B612 Foundation is partnered with Ball Aerospace to build the Sentinel Infrared Space Telescope Mission. Once positioned in solar orbit closer to the Sun from Earth, Sentinel will look outwards in infrared to detect hundreds of thousands of as-yet unknown near-Earth objects over 140 meters in size. The privately-funded spacecraft is slated to launch in 2017-18 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
In addition to Lu, Space Shuttle astronaut Tom Jones and Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders will be speaking at the event, titled "Saving the Earth by Keeping Big Asteroids Away."


Wow, so much for God's love. "Take THAT earth!" PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW (reload) PEW PEW PEW......

[aileron]

The goal of the B612 Sentinel mission is to find and track asteroids decades before they hit Earth, allowing us to easily deflect them.

Even if we could tell an asteroid would impact Earth a decade from now (the calculations are easy enough to show one won't hit Earth, but surprisingly difficult to confirm years in advance that one will hit Earth), it would be the furthest thing from "easily deflect them".  Deflecting any object worth sparing Earth from the impact may well be the most expensive endeavor in human history and have a high risk of failure. 

Even if we somehow got the asteroids tamed, a long-period comet with our name on it would still be very much untamed.  We'd be lucky to spot it six months before impact and wouldn't have time to prepare any meaningful response.

Just keep your fingers crossed.  It will probably work about as well as our Earth impact defenses.

[Solitary]

We have gone through three extinctions in the past where 90 percent of all species died, but I think we will destroy the earth with the nut jobs that can't wait for the Rapture before anything else happens.  Solitary

[AllPurposeAtheist]

It'll be Fukashima style monsters that'll eat us all, not some punny asteroid. Well,  that or same sex marriage and all them tornadoes,  hurricanes,  earthquakes and such. Big Spooky hath spoken..

[renasimplified]

It would stand to reason that Earth's living are at more risk from the activities and petty arguments of humans than anything else at this time. 
Some people would rather blow everything up than admit they are wrong.