not sure if its off topic but:

[Bocaj]

the other Day my girlfriend became suddenly all worried that in around 25 years the world will end, because of a meteor/comet/asteroid was on course to hit the earth, and even if it didn't hit earth that it would still 'destroy all life and any known ecostructures'. Now i'm no professional with the matter but i'm fairly certain that there are many things like the former that aren't true.

will it happen?

is it likely to happen?

 

i'd just like to 'run' it through with some one who knows better than myself

thanks

J

[npts2020]

If humans do nothing, it will absolutely happen someday. In the next 25 years is not likely. Recording the orbits of any object in the solar system large enough to cause such a calamity has been a predilection of astronomers for some years now, long enough for them to say with fair certainty it will not happen that soon.

[DrP]

I used to work with a guy who wrote a book about this. He reckoned that aliens had left us a code (passed down by the knights templar - and left through other specific clues) as to when it would happen so that we would get a chance to try and stop the colision. He reckons it will hit in 2075ish or something like that. I have a copy given to me by the author - It is quite a good read and some of the science sounds plausible - but I don't really believe it at all. I wouldn't advise your GF to read it if she is paranoid about impending asteroid collisions though.

 

The book is called 'Geneset - Target Earth'

[Bocaj]

Thank you guys this is my first post and i'm amazed at the near instant response!

and i will re assure my Girlfriend that all is ok

 

Thanks again

J

[Edtharan]

It is quite a good read and some of the science sounds plausible - but I don't really believe it at all.

Yeh, if the aliens could travel through space, and they could predict where the asteroid would be hundreds of years in advance, then they could have just nudged it a bit so that it would hit something else (like Jupiter, or the Moon).

 

The longer before the asteroid hits the less you have to move it to avoid the collision.

 

So if it was true, then these aliens are willing to intervene so that the asteroid wont hit us by leaving cryptic clues that might be lost (what if there was a fire in their library ), but are unwilling to intervene in a way that would guarantee that the asteroid would not hit.

[Gilded]

It has to be quite a big piece of rock to completely destroy all of civilization, but yeah it is possible although unlikely. And there isn't much we can do about it. Some meteors have a kinetic energy equivalent to thousands if not millions of thermonuclear bombs. While diverting the object from the collision path requires only a fraction of this it's still quite a lot. Perhaps some day we will have some sort of adequate plan for these kinds of scenarios but I'm guessing it won't happen in a few hundred years.

[DrP]

Yeh, if the aliens could travel through space, and they could predict where the asteroid would be hundreds of years in advance, then they could have just nudged it a bit so that it would hit something else (like Jupiter, or the Moon)..... ....but are unwilling to intervene in a way that would guarantee that the asteroid would not hit.

 

maybe - maybe not. What if they were here a thousand years ago and knew about what would happen - but had to go and knew they wouldn't be around when the incident was going to happen - so left us the info we needed to know to stop the collision? They couldn't tell the authorities at the time because because we weren't far enough advanced in our understanding and would have attacked them, misunderstood them or just not taken it seriously and then not passed the info down. So, they encoded the info in a way that we would be able to spot years later when our technologes were capable of understanding them and when we needed it. (...)

 

 

So if it was true, then these aliens are willing to intervene so that the asteroid wont hit us by leaving cryptic clues that might be lost (what if there was a fire in their library ) :

 

Exactly - they don't put the info in libraries - they entrust the info to the kights templar and encrypt it in certain geologies and messages in the landscapes.

 

Anyway - it might be a test, so they might want to see if we are capable of deciphering our code and can prevent the impending doom by coming together as an international body of people to overcome our peril - thus brining world peace and love and harmony etc, before they come back and say 'well done children - you have passed our test - now you can join our integalatic community of worlds and benifit from our technology and resources'. OR, as I believe - it could be a load of old dross.

 

Anyway Bocaj - I wouldn't let your GF read the book in case she believes it and really starts to panic - although we do have another 60 years or so.

[swansont]

I think the "killer asteroid" is supposed to hit (or not) in 2063. But the odds are still slim — you can't get a good read on it yet, and the uncertainty is a path much larger than the size of the earth

 

maybe - maybe not. What if they were here a thousand years ago and knew about what would happen - but had to go and knew they wouldn't be around when the incident was going to happen - so left us the info we needed to know to stop the collision? They couldn't tell the authorities at the time because because we weren't far enough advanced in our understanding and would have attacked them, misunderstood them or just not taken it seriously and then not passed the info down. So, they encoded the info in a way that we would be able to spot years later when our technologes were capable of understanding them and when we needed it. (...)

 

It's hard enough to predict technology and science a decade into the future. How would the aliens know when Europeans would emerge from the dark ages, or that China and the Middle East would change their direction involving science and discovery? The atmosphere for scientific inquiry is dependent on the political/religious attitudes. There's just no way to know that the industrial revolution would happen, much less that relativity and quantum physics would be figured out.

 

Even if postulating aliens were plausible, this scenario isn't plausible. Unless they figured that if we hadn't advanced to that level of sophistication we weren't worth saving.

Edited September 30, 2008 by swansont
multiple post merged

[big314mp]

It's hard enough to predict technology and science a decade into the future. How would the aliens know when Europeans would emerge from the dark ages, or that China and the Middle East would change their direction involving science and discovery? The atmosphere for scientific inquiry is dependent on the political/religious attitudes. There's just no way to know that the industrial revolution would happen, much less that relativity and quantum physics would be figured out.

 

Clearly these aliens also possess a time machine, but they are limited to making only small changes to the time continuum

[dirtyamerica]

There are the odds of this happening are, to use a pun, astrinomical.

 

She should spend time worrying about more probable causes of death like shark attacks or car crashes.