As Clint Eastwood's character Harry Callaghan said "do you feel lucky?", in our lifetimes the chances Yellowstone Volcano erupting and a asteriod/meteor impact are outside possibilities, but both will happen.
How many times has the earth had impacts in the past? How many volcanic eruptions? Of course many more major super volcanic eruptions and a major eruption is more likely to occur before an impact event, but look at the moon and recently Jupiter and it seems an impact will occur in the future. Lets hope we are lucky enough to miss out on it. I recall, like Chuck said, the Astronomical community is the group pushing the idea that an impact is a certain. Can such a relatively rare event even have statistics even applied to it? Erik You're tilting at the wrong windmill, Daniel. Since you quoted my post,
I'm assuming you are addressing my statement as well as Kim's.
Planetary scientists and astronomy popularizers are the ones pushing this idea; the same scientists who are publicly rallying for a more complete inventory of earth-orbit-crossing objects.
They are the ones you need to write your letter of objection to. Or the media who give them a platform, I suppose. I'm sure they'd love to play semantic games with you.
On Thu, Jul 23, 2009 at 7:16 PM, daniel turner <outwest112@yahoo.com> wrote:
I would like to address the concept that the earth is "due" for a Tunguska size impact event. So as far as Tunguska is concerned, you should go out and buy a bunch of green bananas with the full confidence that you have plenty of time for them to ripen. Impact events are never "due".
--- On Thu, 7/23/09, Chuck Hards <chuck.hards@gmail.com> wrote:
From: Chuck Hards <chuck.hards@gmail.com> Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Asteroid or Comet Collision With Earth Probability To: "Utah Astronomy" <utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> Date: Thursday, July 23, 2009, 5:21 PM BTW, for the worriers among us, some scientists feel that the earth is overdue for a "nuclear" sized impact; one big enough to cause major disruptions or even mass extinction. Thus the current emphasis on finding and cataloging objects that cross earth's orbit. (Get busy, Patrick!) ;o)
Combat soldiers are fond of saying that you never hear the one (bullet) that gets you...
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