Important Calls To Mr President

Entry posted by caldrail February 3, 2012

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So far astronomers have found seven thousand asteroids orbiting close to Earth, of which nine hundred are at least one kilometre in diameter. That's like a mountain floating around up there at tens of thousands of miles an hour. Some of you are probably predicting this is going to be a paragraph or two about the frightening hazards whizzing silently over our heads. Correct. It is.

The worrying thing - and the television documentary deliberately portrayed it in a manner designed to raise hair on the back of your neck - is that smaller asteroids are almost impossible to detect until it's too late, and their destructive power is pretty impressive. The evidence was a recent asteroid that fell in North Africa, prompting very important phone calls to the President and satellite photographs showing an impact point glowing as hot as the sun.

Apparently one particular rock band cancelled a gig in New York because the lead singer was convinced an asteroid was headed there. With a bit of luck he also saw the documentary last night and has done the right thing by deciding not to sing in public any more.

As it happens the solar system has mellowed after its incredibly violent youth when rocks were colliding like rush hour traffic in Mumbai. The known asteroids are in benign orbits that are not going to cause us any concern for at least the next century. Good news for us because insurers can't use astronomcal phenomena as an excuse for raising premiums. Unfortunately for Iran it's very bad news indeed. Partly because divine retribution against Israel appears unlikely, but also because using asteroid deterrence as an excuse for building nuclear warheads is not going to wash.

Meanwhile, Back At The Ranch...

Talking about imminent disasters the weathermen have downgraded the risk of snow to Defcon 4. You may now sleep safe in your bed,. Even better it means that very important transatlantic phone calls to the President are unnecessary so you can save on your phone bill too.