The "big lump" was apparently only about a foot across. That size rarely gets into the lower reaches of our atmosphere, but does produce some of the most spectacular "high sky" displays.

---

Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

The atmosphere is shielding us. Neither the Moon nor Mars have such a shield and Mars has a number of impacts recorded by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Tullio

---

The atmosphere is shielding us. Neither the Moon nor Mars have such a shield and Mars has a number of impacts recorded by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Tullio

Had it been an Earth trajectory, it would have burnt up before it hit us, then?

---

"Time is simply the mechanism that keeps everything from happening all at once."

Shoot the moon!!! ,that was close. :)

It sort of gets your attention a bit ,as to what else could be heading towards us .

john3760

---

I've thought that if a large enough rock or piece of ice hit the moon on the side facing us the resulting bright flash would shock us to make more progress toward building some sort of active defence mechanism.

---

Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.

Earth strikes that could level a city or a state are a lot more common than one in 60 million years. What if the Tunguska strike had occurred over Moscow, London, Paris or New York? That size event is within our power to prevent. As a side effect space programs around the world would benefit from the improvement in technology.

---

Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.

Earth strikes that could level a city or a state are a lot more common than one in 60 million years. What if the Tunguska strike had occurred over Moscow, London, Paris or New York? That size event is within our power to prevent. As a side effect space programs around the world would benefit from the improvement in technology.

NASA is going to launch a mission OSIRIS-REx to an asteroid in order to bring back a sample of its material for evaluating the danger of it striking the Earth.
Tullio

---

The biggest problem, as the recent air-bust over Russia has demonstrated is actually spotting an incoming object early enough to be able to do anything about it. And that something isn't smashing it to bits with a nuke, which produces a large number of projectiles which broadly follow the trajectory of the "parent" object, its orbital change - nudge it into a new orbit, preferably one that is not "Earth Planar", which is no easy task...

---

Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

I personally worry about nothing Chris,as that only affects me ,but i think as a species (one of countless millions over the history of life on earth) we should ,with our knowledge of what can happen and what has happened in the past leading to extinction on a massive scale,and also with our technilogical ability to do something about ensuring we are not next,make all efforts to stop such a catastrophy.

It would be easy to say (as quite a few people believe),that if we took the money we spent on war amongst nations, then we could use that money to further science ,and use it for the good of Humanity.
In reality science has quite often only been furthered and expanded upon because of war and the funding that comes with it.In times of peace (not that we've had much over the last couple of hundred years),there is no need to find better explosives,design new propulsion systems,or as it seems at this moment in time actually go into space. The chances of funding coming together to find a solution to an asteroid threat (or any other threat to humanity such as deforestation,global warming,or the mass extinction of biodiversity which is happening at this moment in time) is pretty slim.

The people with the purse strings in this world have Gone Fishing.

john3760

---

Nor do I worry about such events happening. I am a charter member of the s#!t happens society and a believer that not everything happens for a reason. I just see a major strike on the moon as a great opportunity to advance space development and I'm afraid the private sector can't provide the momentum without a profit to make. Before anyone mentions SpaceX remember that their big money is coming from government contracts just like Boeing and LockMart.

So if the world were to get serious about building some sort of asteroid/comet defence all sectors of the space industry would get a boost. Like the man said, when it comes to defence spending, either against our neighbors or threats from space, the money somehow seems to turn up.

---

Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.

Video of 56 mph space rock hitting moon

Make that 56,000 MPH

---

Old enough to know better(but)still young enough not to care

Video of 56 mph space rock hitting moon

Make that 56,000 MPH

Oops, yes it is 56,000 MPH.

Earth strikes that could level a city or a state are a lot more common than one in 60 million years. What if the Tunguska strike had occurred over Moscow, London, Paris or New York? That size event is within our power to prevent. As a side effect space programs around the world would benefit from the improvement in technology.

NASA is going to launch a mission OSIRIS-REx to an asteroid in order to bring back a sample of its material for evaluating the danger of it striking the Earth.
Tullio

It probably makes sense to deploy an earth-defense system against medium to large
asteroids over the next 10 years, but the US policy decision to hand things over
to the private sector is probably most prudent. Let NASA worry about developing
a Space-Warp Drive unless some future super genius boffin like Zefram Cochrane
beats them to it.

As for NASA going to any asteroid, well if they know an asteroids trajectory
close enough to get there, they also know it's not going to hit the earth,
unless the mission is one of attempting deflection.

It makes lot of sense to put more money in a planetary defense system.
Interpol has a budget of 100 million Euros and probably get a hundred times
the bang for the Euro that the Americans get from Homeo Land Security.
A global effort makes greater sense.
If the Americans get to call the shots they'd put in half the money and want
to protect their less than 2 % of global surface area with 50% of the capacity
and the rest can share. The Americans would also demand that half of space
defense construction be through American defense contractors at 10 times the
cost of anywhere else in the world.
It's a point of pride here in Europe that our Russian brothers, the ones who
eliminated Hitler, are the US go to guys to get them to the ISS at 10% of what
they could do it for.
I've heard rumors of Russia and the EU joining, though the debate on what to
call it is ongoing as are some security details on the part of the EU.

---------------------------------------
Three Curses of questionable origin.

"May you live in interesting times."
"May you come to the attention of those in authority."
"May you find what you are looking for."

I've heard rumors of Russia and the EU joining, though the debate on what to call it is ongoing as are some security details on the part of the EU.

Hmmmm, any more info on that?

No Chris nothing worth sharing.
It's inevitable.
Second only to China, Russia has undergone greater change than any other superpower on Earth.
Some would argue that the preeminent superpower, the USA has squandered their vaunted position to such a degree that they'll never recover.
The EU has explored an evolving framework for geographically similar yet culturally diverse regions to share. They still haven't got it right,
and the UK resistance hasn't helped at all.
It is inevitable and Europe will be united, from the UK through to Siberia.

The only sad part is that this regional integration, mostly along racial divisions, will also occur in the rest of the world.
I only hope we can get beyond racial divisions to a global inclusiveness without malice, for the sake of our childeren.

I know that the European Space Agency has built a launch capability for Russian Soyuz launchers at Kourou, French Guyane, home of the big Ariane launchers and also of the Italian built Vega small launchers. The Soyuz is halfway between the two.
Tullio

---