NASA scientistic claims Earth due for an extinction level asteroid impact.

[Calculating]

Seems like we could make more of a priority out of hunting these things down and building an interceptor for if we find one. Even though extinction level impacts are very rare, we still need to worry about 'city killer' asteroids that can swoop in unnoticed. A Tunguska level event over NYC, Beijing, LA etc could kill millions instantly with no warning.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/12/nasa-scientist-earth-is-due-for-extinction-level-event.html
Earth is due for an “extinction-level” event from the sky, and even if we see it coming, we won’t be able to do anything about it, a NASA scientist said Monday. Speaking at a meeting in San Francisco, Dr. Joseph Nuth of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center said large asteroids and comets, the type that could wipe out civilization, are extremely rare, but tend to hit “50 to 60 million years apart.” Given that a comet wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, one could argue that we’re slightly past “due.”

“The biggest problem, basically, is there’s not a hell of a lot we can do about it at the moment,” he added.

But maybe there could be. Nuth cited a close encounter in 2014, when a comet passed perilously close to Mars. It wasn’t spotted until 22 months before it nearly reached the planet, which Nuth says isn’t enough time to fend off a similar threat to Earth. That’s why he’s suggesting NASA build a rocket to be kept in storage and deployed when we know the big one is on the way. If such a rocket were kept tuned up and could be ready to launch within a year, Nuth said, it “could mitigate the possibility of a sneaky asteroid coming in from a place that’s hard to observe, like from the sun

[Generator]

1. Are you trying to cheer us up?

At this point, I'm not sure this would be bad news.

[Calculating]

3. lol

I actually have a Giant Meteor 2016 sticker on my car. If DC was hit by an asteroid on inauguration day I honestly wouldn't feel too bad.

[JHan]

2. If it could just aim for Cheeto Jesus , we'll name a city after it.

[mopinko]

7. i hope they give it a good name, then.

i know, lets name it hillary!

[JHan]

10. Perfect!

[jonno99]

11. Thanks - I needed a laugh!

[jonno99]

4. Is there a "cosmic asteroid dispensor" that routinely releases one every 60 million years?

If not, then it is difficult to argue that we are "due".

Of course, there is nothing wrong with being prepared...

[Calculating]

8. Seems the author didn't pay attention in statistics

Having a .000000017% chance of getting hit by a large asteroid every year doesn't mean that you WILL get hit by one after 60,000,000 years. Every year that chance resets itself.

[csziggy]

16. There is actually some evidence that extinction events happen periodically

Figures indicate roughly every 26 million years.

The Chilling Regularity of Mass Extinctions

Scientists say new evidence supports a 26-million-year cycle linking comet showers and global die-offs.

Adrienne LaFrance Nov 3, 2015

Now, a pair of researchers have new evidence to support a link between cyclical comet showers and mass extinctions, including the one that they believe wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. Michael Rampino, a geologist at New York University, and Ken Caldeira, an atmospheric scientist at the Carnegie Institution for Science, traced 260 million years of mass extinctions and found a familiar pattern: Every 26 million years, there were huge impacts and major die-offs. Their work was accepted by the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society in September.

In recent decades, researchers using other methods have found evidence for a 26-million-year cycle of extinction on Earth, but the idea has remained controversial and unexplained. “I believe that our study, using revised dating of extinctions and craters, and a new method of spectral analysis, is strong evidence for the cycles,” Rampino told me.

<SNIP>

The latest findings from Rampino and Caldeira build on the idea that regular comet showers cause intervals of mass extinctions. The showers, the theory goes, are triggered by the movement of the sun and planets through the crowded mid-plane of our galaxy. As the sun crosses that region, it disrupts great clouds of space dust. Those clouds, in turn, throw off the orbit of comets, sending them careening toward Earth.

In another theory, planetary scientists suggested that one region of the solar system in particular, known as the Oort comet cloud, plays a key role in mass extinctions. The Oort cloud is a sprawling region at the border of our solar system that contains trillions of icy bodies. Muller put forth a popular hypothesis in the 1980s that said our sun has a sort of evil twin in the Oort cloud. This hypothetical star, he suggested, has an orbital cycle such that it would perturb its neighboring objects, and send 1 billion of them hurtling toward Earth every 26 million years. The star, a binary to the sun, was nicknamed Nemesis, and playfully referred to as the death star. “The binary star, or Nemesis theory, was an alternate to the Galactic-plane story,” Rampino told me. “But the star was looked for, but never found, so Nemesis theory is out of favor now.”

More: http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2015/11/the-next-mass-extinction/413884/

[ZoomBubba]

5. The article talks like ...

... asteroids have it marked on a calendar to strike ever few millennia.

[Coventina]

6. There was an episode of Elementary this season that dealt with this issue.

Interesting!

[jberryhill]

9. Best News I've Seen Lately

[Yavin4]

12. On the bright side, no need to make New Year's Resolutions. n/t

[HassleCat]

13. Might as well have a big rocket.

It's a good welfare program. Sure, the threat is remote, but it will cost less than the F35 for fighter, which can't protect us from anything.

[cagefreesoylentgreen]

14. Pre-apocalyptic fiction

"The Last Policeman" by Ben Winters, a murder mystery with an imminent asteroid impact looming in the background story. It's a good book, recommended if you're into that genre.

[marybourg]

17. Thanx. I just reserved the e-book

at my county library.

[mindfulNJ]

15. Whatever.

[Javaman]

18. ...

[Bonn1997]

19. Perhaps they're metaphorically calling the Trump administration an "asteroid"