asteroid/comet impact - would 'they' tell us?

Reading through the mammoth 'very scary end of the world' thread it was interesting to see an almost universal assumption that if governments new of such a threat that they would not inform the people of the danger.

I believe that this is incorrect and that they probably would inform us as it would be the most efficient way of ensuring that as many people as possible survived.

Also, they'd be keen to keep hold of the communications themselves and the best way to do this is to get in first before rumours and speculation get out of hand.

I know NASA is on record as saying that it wouldn't want to inform the general public in such an event, but it wouldn't be NASA's decision.

Also, once elected politicians became aware of the situation, there would be pressure from them to make the situation public. (After all there are still some decent politicians out there, they aren't all corrupt crooks only concerned about saving their own skins).

So, how would the governments of the major economic powers react and what would be their plan (assuming they had at least a few months' notice)?

Also, could humanity take the news? I reckon it could, people are pretty stoical in a crisis (as anyone who had parents or grandparents who lived through the blitz will know) and although there would be initial panic, it would calm down quickly, particularly as the major powers would undoubtedly have numerous plans to divert the object from its course; and, failing that, evacuate the main impact areas to minimise fatalities.

I'm sure there would also be plenty of 'Protect and Survive' type public service announcements, too (remember those from the Cold War era in the 70s and 80s) designed to reassure us but ultimately useless (like telling us how to build tsunami shelters out of a couple of old mattresses, etc, etc).

Anyway, just a few thoughts. I'd be interested to know what others think.

I don't think they would tell the people, at least not very far in advance.

After reading the posts here and on other forums many people would not go to work, would not pay bills. I saw one post that said they did not want to wait for the end and they were going to commit suicide.

Some people would be able to handle the news of impending doom while others would not and just give up. If you new the end was a month or a week away, why go to work, why not spend the remaining time with your family? What would stop people from doing anything they wanted to do?

Official US policy is to not inform the public. This is not a secret.

The reasoning behind this is if you warn people and it doesn't hit, thousands of people are killed in the panic. If it does hit, the warning mattered little, no bunker can save you from a day or two of burning heat followed by years of winter and death.

However, that is not how things would happen. An incomming object would probably be picked up by a amatuer or non-fed and the news would spread world wide fast as the trajectory is confirmed by others.

If it is comming and we know about it, you probably will too.

Most likely we won't see it comming.

Good points, as you say, the likelihood is that we wouldn't see it coming and there would be no time to warn.

I'm still confident, though, that given enough time (even a few months) we would have the technology to change the orbit of the asteroid or comet. In some ways, we'd be spoilt for choice about how to do this, i.e, mine it out using the debris as propulsion; position a mirror around the rock to burn part of it away thus propelling it into a different trajectory; blowing it up, etc.

The larger and therefore the more threatening the object the more likelihood there is of spotting it in good time.

I don't think there would be mass suicides until the very end - it's human nature to survive at all costs and I think people would hang on to the slim hope however unlikely the chances of survival would be.



[Edited on 2-6-2004 by harrisjohns]

If it was going to happen, we will see many missing persons reports leading up to it as they go underground. Plus their bunkers have supplies for 3 generations...

I don�t think thy will tell us thy will gust save them selves and dose that matters for the normal people like me way will thy care about us if thy know something like this.

But if something like it comes is comes we can do nothing about it.

So I hope something like it won�t happen soon�

If 'they' - the governments, the rich and powerful etc - were going to go underground for their own preservation in such an event , they'd be unlikely to allow the inpending doom to become public knowledge. Most importantly for them, because a revolt could occur and jeopardise their plans and safety.
Think of the anarchy too, if it was announced that a comet was going to plough into the Earth - people believing their actions have no ultimate concequence - and then the danger is averted, leaving society & economy in ruin.

Yes, I can accept that line of argument, but ultimately "they" would want something left to rule when they came out of their bunkers, and getting people as prepared as possible for such an impact would increase the possibility of this.

I suppose a lot depends on how big the object was - if it was an extinction level event I don't believe anyone would survive.

Something less than that, there'd be a fighting chance.

Yeah, I imagine they would like a society to return to governing or ruling over. However, if an asteroid was going to hit, that would kill everyone on the surface within, say, 2 years - given that underground bunkers have only a very limited capacity - they'd most likely abandon any ideology, governmental responsibility etc in favor of self-preservation.

If it was a less destructive object, leaving us with a fighting chance like you say, they'd retreat to their bunkers and emerge later to pick up the pieces. Having said that though, for any survivors, money, social standing, political office (the things that 'they' have) would have lost all meaning and value, so I'm not sure how they would return to a position of power...by force perhaps?

NO, they would not tell you. can you imagine how insane people would get if they knew they only had a month or so to live?

we could get hit by a big one at anytime, the next minute, hour, day whatever. there is too much going on up there to track it all. if i recall correctly there was an asteroid that past the earth recently that could of had wiped us out, problem is no one even knew about it until it had past.

You are all WRONG. I think i debunked this in the last thread. I am a person who actaully looks for objects in space such as comets and asteroids. NASA does not do that, why would they? .....It would cost way tooo much. Instead, amateur astronomers do the job. The organization of astronomers numbers into the thousands. Perfect example, the comet that slammed into jupiter in 94 was discovered when it was in the outer portion of the solar system. To say the least, a comet has the most danger of ending the earth, yet would be detected way before it happened. Actually, any object large enough to do alot of damage would be detected way before it happens....in most cases. As the final nail in the coffin, .....these things are found by people like your neighbor, not a " huge government secret organization". I realize that this IS a conspiracy theory forum, but you have to stop watching movies like " armegeddon". How can the American government cover up something so big.....YOU WOULD BE ABLE TO SEE IT WITH YOUR OWN EYES .....through a scope that is.

Originally posted by razorbackhater
NO, they would not tell you. can you imagine how insane people would get if they knew they only had a month or so to live?

we could get hit by a big one at anytime, the next minute, hour, day whatever. there is too much going on up there to track it all. if i recall correctly there was an asteroid that past the earth recently that could of had wiped us out, problem is no one even knew about it until it had past.

You are seriously mistaken. We did see that one comming but the percent of uncertaintly of predicting its orbit was too high. You have to keep in mind that the equations for finding the orbit of something require a period of watching the object move. Once we realized that the course it was taken did not intersect with earths orbit, it was no longer a threat. If your so concerned with this , go out and buy a telescope. There are much more interesting things than conspiracy thoeries.

If it was a less destructive object, leaving us with a fighting chance like you say, they'd retreat to their bunkers and emerge later to pick up the pieces. Having said that though, for any survivors, money, social standing, political office (the things that 'they' have) would have lost all meaning and value, so I'm not sure how they would return to a position of power...by force perhaps?

Yes, I'm sure it would be under some sort of martial law with the military guarding and organising distribution of the remaining food and water supplies. Those of use who were left would basically be made to work on reconstruction and if we refused we wouldn't be fed.

The British Government had all sorts of plans like this for ruling the country after a major nuclear war with power devolved to local ruling committees (for those of you who haven't seen it, Threads is an excellent BBCTV docudrama made in 1984 which outlines all of this). I'll bet similar plans are in place for ruling after a natural cataclysm like an asteroid strike.

Originally posted by razorbackhater
NO, they would not tell you. can you imagine how insane people would get if they knew they only had a month or so to live?

I hear what you are saying, but I'm not sure that there would be mass insanity. Every year, hundreds of thousands of people are told that they are terminally ill with just a few months to live and they manage to deal with it without going insane. Many of them continue to lead everyday lives and even work until the illness prevents them.

By not telling us, governments would be vastly underestimating human spirit.

We're really pretty strong and stoical and able to face adversity.








[Edited on 2-6-2004 by harrisjohns]

Early last month, a large asteroid passed inside the moon's orbit. We didn't even notice that one until it was past us.

There's an awful lot of space debris out there. We can't even see all of it, let alone track it. The possibility of the governmental agencies informing the general public, when nothing can be done to stop it, would, in my opinion, be entirely nonexistent. It just doesn't make sense to panic the populace, when it wouldn't do any good. The plot line for the movie "Armageddon" was interesting, and completely fantasy. I do not think, that even given a month's lead time, that anyone on earth could possibly develop and execute a plan to alter the trajectory of an incoming object enough to cause an object on a collision course to miss the earth.

So, in a nutshell, no. I don't think that any government would tell anyone. It would cause widespread, useless panic.

A couple points I think we are missing here is that the US arent the only people with Telescopes, and use telescopes from around the world to coordinate there efforts. an event like this would come out. Maybe to late for you to seek cover maybe not depending on the size and location of impact. But we would eventually find out. Other goverments are alot more liberal with info. Sh!t France might even save our butts for a change .. j/k frechies

Originally posted by Ouizel
Early last month, a large asteroid passed inside the moon's orbit. We didn't even notice that one until it was past us.

There's an awful lot of space debris out there. We can't even see all of it, let alone track it. The possibility of the governmental agencies informing the general public, when nothing can be done to stop it, would, in my opinion, be entirely nonexistent. It just doesn't make sense to panic the populace, when it wouldn't do any good. The plot line for the movie "Armageddon" was interesting, and completely fantasy. I do not think, that even given a month's lead time, that anyone on earth could possibly develop and execute a plan to alter the trajectory of an incoming object enough to cause an object on a collision course to miss the earth.

So, in a nutshell, no. I don't think that any government would tell anyone. It would cause widespread, useless panic.

refer to my last post

Encino why is it that I hear amateur astronomers stating that it's impossible to track everything floating around up there...maybe they should get in contact with you, you seem to have all the answers.

as far as people going nuts in reguards to their impending doom...let's see, how many riots have there been over stupid stuff?



[Edited on 2-6-2004 by razorbackhater]

Originally posted by ENCINO MAN
..YOU WOULD BE ABLE TO SEE IT WITH YOUR OWN EYES .....through a scope that is.

Not if it were only visible in the Southern Hemisphere, us people in the North would have to rely on observations of others and their testitomony of what they've observed.

That is what made has made the ABs story so interesting on here.

Furthermore, Encino, how many asteroids have you seen through your telescope? I mean, these are (celestially speaking) very small objects, with a minimal magnitude. Uranus, as an example, at its brightest is a 5.8 magnitude, and an asteroid at 50km-100km wide would only be an 8.5 magnitude, or not quite as bright as Neptune (at 7.7 magnitude at it's brightest.)

So, then, I'm curious, How powerful is your scope? Have you seen either Uranus or Neptune through your scope? How about Pluto? (It's at a magnitude of 14.5 at it's brightest.) That equates to an asteroid 3 km - 7 km in diameter. That's not very bright. And it would seems to me that 3-7 km is big enough to cause major problems, and would be very difficult for even a trained eye to see, even if that eye knew where to look. Space is awful big.

I'm not saying that you're necessarily wrong, I'm just saying that if there was evidence of an inbound Near-Earth Object, the government would have nothing to gain by making the information public, and private astronomers (generally) don't have the equipment necessary for locating and plotting the trajectories of these objects.

They SHOULD contact me....Actually PLEASE DO! there is too much pseudo-science going on around here. THERE IS NO COMET OR ASTEROID COMMING AT US. It might not be the " glamerous " conclusion but it is the one that is correct.

As a sidenote, you say you have talked to " amateur " astronomers? Well, my fellow Profesional Astronomers kind of think this whole discussion board is a joke. I am sure that the creators didnt want things to come down to this but the majority of subjects disscussed on space and astronomy are FALSE. .....no offense or anything....really.