Lessons Learned From a Simulated Asteroid Strike
upstart writes in with an IRC submission for c0lo:
Lessons learned from a simulated asteroid strike:
In an alternate reality playing out at this year's international Planetary Defense Conference, a fictional asteroid crashes over Europe, 'destroying' a region about 100 km wide near the Czech Republic and German border. The scenario was imagined, but the people who took part are very real, and the lessons learnt will shape our ability to respond to dangerous asteroids for years to come.
Asteroid impact: the only natural disaster we might prevent
Natural hazards come in a range of forms and occur with varying frequency. Some are relatively frequent events with localized impacts such as flooding and wildfires. Others occur just once in a blue moon but can impact the entire planet, such as global pandemics and asteroid impacts.
The threat from asteroids however is unique: an asteroid impact is the most predictable natural disaster we face, and given enough warning we have the technology, in principle, to entirely prevent it.
[...] The good news is, when it comes to giant, dinosaur-extinction-sized asteroids, we are pretty sure we've found every one out there. Because of their sheer size, they are easy to detect. But the smaller they get, the more we still have to find, which is why the impact of this year's asteroid, 2021 PDC, provided such an important lesson: we can only prevent what we can predict.
[...] "Simply thinking in annual or bi-annual planning cycles, which is how many budgets at public institutions are set, is not good enough to address a risk that has been hundreds of millions of years in the making."
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