Vital Viewing (Falling Debris Edition)

 

500 meteors a year make their way past the Earth's atmosphere. This is a story of one of them:

I happen to live in the area where that meteor fell, but didn't see it because I was inside, and didn't hear the BOOM because I was in a noisy environment at the time, noisy enough that it even drowned out a meteorite. I didn't know anything about it until much later when I was scrolling through the news on my phone. I feel deprived. I didn't get to hear the BOOM. Where is my BOOM? I want to hear a BOOM!

So, by way of compensation:

Call out the National Guard!

Graphic Grandeur (Star Force One Edition)

 

 

You can fret about what went on at Davos all you want. As for myself, I worry more that...

...Earth may soon be paid an unwelcome visit by otherworldly beings!

Cartoon by Matt Reuter

Vital Viewing (Tails from the Darkside Edition)

 

With all the turmoil taking place here on planet Earth, you'd at least think the heavens above could offer a bit of serenity. No such luck! On July 1 of this year an Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) telescope in Rio Hurtado, Chile took notice of a comet newly arrived from outside the solar system. That it's acting a bit different from other known comets has scientists puzzled, and at least one scientist thinks it may not be a comet at all. Watch:

You heard that guy. If it turns out to be just a comet, don't worry. If it's a spacecraft, worry. 

Actually, I worry even if it is a comet, especially as I recall this movie from way back when:

Well, maybe there's nothing to worry about after all. That '80s teen slang is much too dated to make a comeback.  

Not that there aren't ominous signs elsewhere:

Better get out the tinfoil. 

 

Photo Finish (Not of This Moon Edition)

 

Earthrise, 1968

 The most influential environmental photograph ever taken.

--Galen Rowell, wilderness photographer

We came all this way to explore the moon, and the most important thing was that we discovered the Earth.

--William Anders

Apollo 8 astronaut William Anders job on Christmas Eve, 1968 was to snap pictures of the lunar surface in preparation for the first manned landing sometime the next year, when he noticed this:

Black-and-white film was cheaper and more commonplace in the 1960s, which is why the first picture of the Earth taken in lunar orbit is monochromatic. However, a few rolls of color film were on board in case of a special occasion. Anders figured this was a special enough occasion and beckoned his fellow astronauts Frank Borman and James Lovell:

Anders: Oh, my God! Look at that picture over there! There's the Earth coming up. Wow, that's pretty.  

Borman: (joking) Hey, don't take that, it's not scheduled.                                                                    

Anders: (laughs) You got a color film, Jim? Hand me a roll of color, quick, would you?                            

Lovell: Oh, man, that's great!

And that's how the famous color photo at the top of this post came to be, though Anders, Lowell, and Borman would have seen it from this angle:

 

       

Anders, 90, died yesterday when the plane he was piloting alone plunged into the waters off the San Juan Islands in Washington state.                 

Lovell, Anders, and Borman

First Strike

 

Ever since somebody figured out that an asteroid crash landing on what is today Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula some 66 million years ago caused all the dinosaurs to go extinct, there's been fears that the same thing could happen again. Except this time around the extinct species won't be the dinosaurs but we humans! So the best minds at NASA came up with a homo sapiens-saving solution: shoot a spacecraft at an incoming celestial rock and knock it out of its trajectory. And that's what this past Monday's Double Asteroid Redirection Test was all about. Launched in November 2021, the DART space vehicle was only the size of a vending machine when it was sent hurtling into Dimorphos  (which posed no threat to Earth), an asteroid the size of football field, but at a speed of 14,000 miles per hour, it can cause quite a bang for its $320 million price tag:

The lack of a Star Wars-like explosion may make the whole thing seem anticlimactic, but that's only because the spacecraft's camera was destroyed upon impact, giving proof that there was indeed an impact, and the reason for all the cheering and high-fiving among the NASA ground crew.

Here's the pictures the Webb and Hubble telescopes took:

In addition to being an asteroid, Dimorphos is also a moon that orbits a bigger asteroid--one about a half-mile wide--named Didymos which does get too close to Earth on occasion. If the smaller asteroid's orbit is altered in any way, we'll know the mission was a success. That may still be a couple months away, but scientists are optimistic, and if that optimism is borne out, you'll be able to look up at a shooting star in the nighttime sky secure in the knowledge that it need not be an extinction-level event.

Unfortunately...

...other threats will still be there.