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Well NASA recently made a statement that there's no significant asteroid going to hit Earth for centuries to come thus shunning growing rumours by conspiracy th
by kr4 11y ago
Well NASA recently made a statement that there's no significant asteroid going to hit Earth for centuries to come thus shunning growing rumours by conspiracy theorist about Planet X. SO why are they spending dollars on such a scenario (specially when NASA's budget has been reduced recently)? It could rather be spent on say human mission to Mars ETC which are near term possibilities.
- spoiledtechie 11y agoBecause Nasa can only see about 10% of the entire sky. Meaning, they can't see the other 90% probability that it might hit some day.
- malka 11y agoBecause it is cool to do so. And it could confirm some data. Actually, what would be a good reason NOT to do it ?
- Asbostos 11y agoLet's say a mass-extinction causing space object hits Earth every 100 million years (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_event https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_event) . That gives us a 1e-8 chance of all 7e9 people being wiped out in one year. That's an average of 700 people killed every year if it were spread out in time. Definitely a serious risk even if not the most pressing right now. It is however more dangerous than terrorism in America, and plenty of money is being spent on that!