Rock From Hell in Earth's
Future?
The colorful but extinct Siberian yak.
NASA yesterday upgraded the risk to
planet earth posed by asteroid 2004-MN4 from outer space. The big rock is
scheduled to maybe [odds 1:60] hit the earth in 2029, during sweeps week.
It's quarter mile width makes the asteroid bigger than the one that exploded
in the atmosphere above Siberia back in 1908. While it didn't have a name,
that asteroid flattened thousands of square miles of forest, and is
considered by many to be the cause of extinction for the colorful Siberian
yak. NASA took the unprecedented step of upgrading 2004-MN4 to a
category 4 on the Torino Scale.As any
good astronomer will gladly tell you, the
Torino Scale is a system that
measures the amount of clobbering power an object has, should it smack into
the Earth. It runs from zero to ten, with zero meaning that there is no
chance of collision and ten meaning 'kiss your ass goodbye'.
President Bush reacted immediately to
the news, urging congress to speed up funding for his multi-billion dollar
missile defense system. Donald Rumsfeld was already on the news circuit this
morning, telling ABC "Shoot, we've come a long way, and before long the
system will have at least a modest capability. You've got to keep in mind
that we've been trying to shoot down little tiny things, and this is a big
meteor. We can't miss it, unless, of course, we lose the will." Rumsfeld
will appear tonight on Fox tonight, as part of the premier for their new
feature, 'Will To Live: American Meteor'. The show will air nightly at 8:30
'until something is done'. |
