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> We sought evidence that the little lake existed before the event. Reliable, pre-1908 maps of this uninhabited region of Siberia are not easy to come by, but w
by AlbertCory 4y ago
> We sought evidence that the little lake existed before the event. Reliable, pre-1908 maps of this uninhabited region of Siberia are not easy to come by, but we found a czarist military map from 1883 that fails to show the lake. Testimony by local Evenk natives also asserts that a lake was produced by the 1908 explosion.
this is about as suggestive a set of facts as you're ever likely to get. We don't need any exotic theories about Tesla or aliens.
> The first step in preparing ourselves would be to decide whether the cosmic object that affected Siberia was an asteroid or a comet.
What would we do differently if we determined conclusively which it was? A comet could strike Earth, even if Tunguska was not one. Knowing that it happened doesn't make it any more likely it could happen again.
- faceloss 4y ago[dead]
- sandworm101 4y agoOne is more common that the other. And size matters. The smaller this object was, the more likely it will be to happen again. So it's exact size and composition matters when calculating future likelihoods.
- AlbertCory 4y agowell, it caused a city-killing explosion. What would we do differently if the projected size estimates varied by 10x? It's scientifically interesting. Nothing wrong with that.
- sandworm101 4y agoIt might make the difference between ignoring a potential city-killer impact, and an all-or-nothing attempt to save us from civilization-ending event. To make such decisions we need to know what a particular type of incoming object might do. That means careful study of the few examples we already have in our history.
- AlbertCory 4y agoOK. And the debate about "what should we do about that massive object out there heading for Earth" would be calm and rational, and the voices saying "hey, don't worry, it's just going to be Tunguska-sized, we can ignore it!" would win out? Please. It's an interesting question, and that's it.
- mach1ne 4y agoDepending on the projected costs and other risks, yes, that could happen.
- sandworm101 4y agoA tunguska-sized event would be ignored, paticularly as most of earths surface is water. Such an explosion over the pacific would not be worth the cost of any redirect attempt.
- edmundsauto 4y agoWell, a 10x situation probably wouldn’t end civilization. But, yes we should learn what we can from what evidence is available! Fully agree.
- Gordonjcp 4y ago> What would we do differently if we determined conclusively which it was? We probably *couldn't* do much differently, but Newton-for-Newton a bloody great big squashy snowball hitting us with a certain amount of energy would have a different effect - and maybe different mitigation - from a smaller harder rock with the same energy.
- AlbertCory 4y ago> We probably couldn't do much differently and yet the DART experiment did succeed in changing the path of an asteroid.
- AtlasBarfed 4y agoComets, because they tell all the way down the gravity well from the kuiper belt, are faster than relatively stable orbit asteroids. Kinetic energy is a square of velocity....