Review of
Asteroids:
Deadly Impact,
National Geographic DVD
Five out
of five stars
Explanation
of humanity’s existential threat
For decades, humanity has faced potential
extinction due to a major thermonuclear war. However, there is another existential
threat that has existed since the first humans walked the Earth. That threat is
from space in the form of the ultimate wanderers of the solar system, comets
and asteroids.
These objects are remnants of the creation of
the solar system that have no orbit with a fixed distance from the sun. Their orbits
take them from a shorter distance from the sun out to great distances. If the
alignment is right, the Earth’s gravity will attract them into a collision
course with Earth.
There is evidence that there have been
spectacular collisions in the past, there is now general agreement among the
scientific community that such a collision led to the extinction of the
dinosaurs. There was one major collision in human history, and it took place in
Siberia in June of 1908.
This video is the story of geologist Eugene
Shoemaker and his decades-long quest to convince the scientific world that
meteors of significant size have impacted with Earth and that the craters on
the moon were made by meteor strikes. It is a fascinating story of persistence
and the conclusion that there is a real, albeit small probability that humanity
will be wiped out by an asteroid collision. There is a higher probability that
there will be a repeat of the Siberian strike, most likely in an ocean, that
will not be at the level of an extinction event.
This is a video that should be shown in all
K-12 programs, because it is possible for humanity to mount an effective deterrent
to such a strike. To create such a
defense would require significant expense and that would necessitate public
support. Generating such support will require educating the taxpayers.
