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To: Jeffrey S. Mitchell who wrote (20928)	5/6/2004 3:43:35 PM
From: scion	Respond to of 32906

Any sign of an IPO? Global Catastrophic Prevention company. Interplanetary Object, that is.

To: Jeffrey S. Mitchell who wrote (20928)	5/6/2004 4:27:53 PM
From: EL KABONG!!!	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 32906

*Off Topic* Hi Jeff, You know, we often joke about the big meteorite from outer space that hits our planet with catastrophic results, but the truth is, that that scenario is not far-fetched at all. The reality is that, every few thousand years or so, a big one does impact our planet. Meteor Crater in Arizona and the Tsunguska impact in Russia (in 1908) are the two most famous. But there has probably been thousands and thousands of impacts over the years since Earth formed, and most of these have impacted (relatively harmlessly) in our oceans. One theory has it that the dinosaurs were wiped out by a meteor impact on a land mass that artificially introduced an "Ice Age" on the planet during prehistoric times. The Near Earth Asteroid Tracking team is comprised of professional and amateur astronomers alike, all across the globe. Every night, weather permitting, they track as much of our skies as is possible searching for meteoroids and asteroids large enough to cause potential damage to Earth should one plunk down in our oceans or worse, on land. As extensive as the coverage of our skies is, only the Northern Hemisphere has extensive coverage. That's because most astronomers are located in the great land masses of the Northern Hemisphere. In the Southern Hemisphere, coverage is quite sporadic, due to less land mass and fewer telescopes. In the past 5 years (or thereabouts) we have had two near-misses (in astronomical terms) with potential catastrophic asteroids. The first one, maybe 4 or 5 years ago now, passed outside the orbit of our moon, but was still considered quite close. The second one, within the past year, passed between the moon and the Earth. Astronomers didn't even see it until it was literally right on top of us. If memory serves, it was about the size of a 10 story building, or large enough to damage the Earth's crust and atmosphere depending upon exactly where on the surface it impacted. By mere chance, I saw the most recent near-miss asteroid in my telescope as it passed between Earth and the moon. At the time, I dismissed it as a satellite, even though I couldn't find which satellite would be orbiting in that path in that specific time frame. It wasn't until the next day when I read the newspaper accounts that I realized what I had seen. In my telescope (quite small by telescope standards), at extreme magnification, I saw a pinpoint of light streaking across the field of view in my eyepiece. I was able to slew the telescope successfully, keeping the object in view for about 30 or 40 seconds before I lost it. To give some idea of what these astronomers are searching for, it's the equivalent of locating a specific tiny grain of sand in the Pacific Ocean. To give a rough idea of what a near-miss is as defined in astronomical terms, it would be the equivalent of two airplanes avoiding a mid-air collision by the breadth of a marble; close in the extreme and too close for comfort. The theory behind NEAT is that, should we detect an asteroid hazard early enough, we can send weaponry into space and theoretically anyway, explode the asteroid into trillions of tiny pieces, which would make for one heck of a fireworks display when those "falling stars" harmlessly impacted our outer atmosphere and burned up without causing any serious damage to our planet. For all of the asteroids discovered to date, trajectory paths and tracking has been accomplished for many thousands of years into the future. So far, we haven't found a single one that poses any imminent dangers to our planet. That doesn't mean we are 100% safe for the near term. It does mean that we haven't yet located the next bolide that will impact us within the next 900 or so years (statistically speaking)... KJC