Shock asteroid warning: Earth faces 100 years of killer strikes beginning in 2017 - or maybe even earlier?

Nathan Rao
Daily Express, UK
Fri, 05 Sep 2014 20:24 UTC

Comment: In light of readers' feedback regarding the following article, a few comments:

The 'science' in this article isn't really defensible. It's the 'newsworthiness' of the story that stands out for SOTT.net, just the fact that ANY kind of space threat scenario is being publicized.

A couple of possibilities as to what is going on here:

The author is 'leaking info' which, though not scientifically accurate, gets that message out there that 'something wicked this way comes'.

Alternatively, the author is writing deliberately rubbish stuff that can easily be debunked, thereby debunking anyone by association who notices that something is definitely 'up'.

Maybe a bit of both is at work; maybe something else entirely. Journalistic standards aren't exactly what they might once have been, so this could simply have been a rush-job to meet the deadline for a 'sensational' story.

But consider this: while the UK's Daily Express is 'tabloid trash', it's also owned by a media baron, a British media baron, no less, who are notoriously good at 'info-crafting'. As such, most, if not all, of its content, like all MSM, is pretty carefully vetted. If you get to hear about something, then there's generally a political reason why you're getting to hear about it.

So, SOTT.net is re-posting this article - for posterity's sake if nothing else - to take note of the fact that a British media outlet has just alerted sizeable numbers of people to the reality of imminent cosmic threat, whether intentionally, as part of a 'tar-baby' maneuver, or otherwise.

The bottom line is that the planet today - in contrast with a decade ago - IS being peppered with more and more space rocks, and more and more people are starting to take notice.

The article itself may be 'noise' - and most, unaware of the extent of the space threat, would be correct to dismiss it - but we happen to know for a fact that there is a 'signal' behind it.

© GETTY

Experts predict that asteroids are to pepper the planet from 2017

Asteroids could rain down on the earth for 100 years, shocked experts have just warned.

A previously unknown asteroid belt has been located in deep space and is now hurtling towards our part of the solar system.

It means a 'global killer' could collide with Earth as soon as 2020, wiping out life as we know it and changing the climate for millennia.

The terrifying predictions came as NASA revealed disturbing new data showing 400 impacts are expected between 2017 and 2113, based on new observational data of objects seen in space over the past 60 days.

Most will have a maximum diameter of around 100 metres - the size of seven double decker buses - and the potential to cause significant damage.

But concerned scientists warned a colossal "monster" is also heading our way, with one 'mega' asteroid threatening earth in just SIX years.

It follows claims this week by physicist Professor Brian Cox that a bus-sized asteroid, named 2014 EC, came within 61,637 kilometres (38,300 miles) of Earth in March.

He said there is an "asteroid with our name on it" and it is only a matter of time before an asteroid large enough to wipe out the human race collides with Earth.

Many believe an asteroid was responsible for killing the dinosaurs with a similar life-changing event potentially just around the corner.

Professor Bill Napier, an astronomy expert at the University of Buckingham, said a strike by either an asteroid or debris from a comet could have devastating consequences.

He said: "If something like this happened, depending on where it hit it would be absolutely life-altering.

"The atmospheric chemistry would be upset by cutting out sunlight. It would be like a nuclear winter and could last for tens of thousands of years.

"These comets are 200-300km (186 miles) in diameter they are sheer monsters and could sterilise the earth if we are hit by one.

© NASA

The dangerously close approach this weekend

© NASA

Experts predict that an enormous asteroid will skirt past the Earth THIS WEEKEND

© GETTY

An asteroid impact with the planet could spell an end to mankind

"The more immediate risk comes from sub-kilometre (smaller) asteroids and there are tens of thousands of these in space which are quite capable of causing damage on a regional scale.

"One hit Siberia in 1908 and luckily it was not in a populated area. Had this happened in London it would have wiped out everything within the M25 and you would have heard the collision in another country."

And experts warned of the possibility of something much bigger striking earth in 2020.

Asteroid 2012 DA14, discovered by astronomers at the LaSagra Observatory in Spain, currently has less than a one per cent chance of hitting but scientists can't rule out the possibility that it might smash into our planet.

Paul Chodas, a planetary astronomer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) said: "The orbit for 2012 DA14 is currently very Earth-like, which means it will be very close to Earth on a regular basis."

© GETTY

Many believe that the death of the dinosaurs was triggered by an asteroid impact

Professor Napier said the earth is at risk of two types of strike - asteroids, which are lumps of rock, and much larger comets formed from ice which shatter into billions of "diamond-like" pieces as they hit the earth.

He said though some famous comets like Halley's Comet present little risk there are similar ones out there which could have catastrophic effects.

The Swift-Tuttle Comet, discovered in by Lewis Swift on July 16, 1862, and by Horace Parnell Tuttle on July 19, 1862, is next due to rocket past the planet in the year 4479.

Professor Napier said: "Halley's Comet, which is about 10km across does not cross closely enough to the earth, the most dangerous one is the Swift-Tuttle Comet which is 27km across and passes very close to the Earth.

"There is a more immediate risk from the smaller asteroids.

"Comets are extremely fragile ice bodies and from time to time they get caught up in the gravity of the giant planets and are thrown inwards, this stress can cause them to disintegrate.

"The dust would cut out the sunlight and we would see multiple bombardments".

This is not unlikely at all, and if we are looking at small comets, they become a significant risk on time scales relative to civilisation and capable of collapsing civilisation.

"These things are floating around in the sky and there is a real hazard out there that hasn't been properly studied, and it could happen at any time.

"Needless to say there's a lot of controversy around the subject it could be tomorrow".

Professor Cox, 46, said when 2014 EC sideswiped the Earth a few months ago it came dangerously close to wiping us all out.

He said: "We didn't see it, we saw it on the way out, but if it had just been a bit further over it would have probably wiped us out. These things happen.

"The thing that bothers me about that is we do know how to do something about it.

"There is an asteroid with our name on it and it will hit us."

According to the JPL there are more than 100 "ring-like" structures on Earth which could have been caused by an impact.

A working group chaired by Dr. David Morrison at the NASA Ames Research Centre, estimates there are more than 2,000 asteroids larger than one kilometre (0.6 miles) across in space.

NASA says an impact by one of these "in the wrong place" would be a catastrophe, but it would not threaten civilisation.

The working group warned an impact by an asteroid larger than 1-2 kilometres could throw the climate into chaos triggering crop failure and loss of life.

An impact by an object larger than about five kilometres is damaging enough to cause mass extinctions, it said.

© GETTY

Asteroid 2014 EC almost guaranteed mankind the same fate as the dinosaurs when it passed the planet

Comment: The above article has since been 'debunked' here.

What its critics don't realize is that the cosmic situation is probably even more dire than sketched out by Nathan Rao.

Regular readers will be familiar with Laura Knight-Jadczyk's investigations into the planet's repeated close encounters with comet clusters down through history...

Comets and Catastrophe

The Apocalypse: Comets, Asteroids and Cyclical Catastrophes

Comets and the Horns of Moses

... which are timely in light of the significant increase in meteor fireballs in recent years. Here are just a couple of recent hits, both coming around the same time that 'harmless' Asteroid 2014 RC made its 'fly-by' last Sunday September 7th:

• SOTT Exclusive: Massive explosion rocks Nicaraguan capital - Did part of Asteroid 2014 RC just impact Earth?
• Great balls of fire: Meteor illuminates Spanish skyline

Rao's article is an easy target. He's right to sound the alarm, though he did so for the wrong reasons: indeed the probability of direct-hit impacts from larger bodies in our near-to-medium future is probably mathematically small. The point that both Rao and his critics miss, however, is that with more objects comes more finer material - lots of it, including the threat of comet-borne viruses. These alone can have catastrophic climate change effects for people and planet. Forget an extinction-level asteroid 200 years from now: the danger from civilization-ending cosmic catastrophe is present now.

Another reason why Rao's article is an easy target is because he made the mistake of homing in on specific space rocks. There is NO WAY TO TELL what might hit, and when. The world's observatories were focused on 2012 DA14 when, 6 hours before its scheduled fly-by, another large rock - from another direction - arrived out of nowhere to explode over Chelyabinsk, Russia!

The take-home point is that - based on multiple data points - the overall level of cometary debris in the inner solar system has massively increased in recent decades, and especially since the early 2000s. As Pierre Lescaudron wrote in his recently published 'Earth Changes and the Human-Cosmic Connection':

There has been a significant increase in the discovery of asteroids in recent decades. In 1980, there were 9,000 known asteroids in the solar system. By 2000, there were 86,000. By 2007, there were 380,000. As of 2013, the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center had data on 1.1 million asteroids.

Of the 1.1 million asteroids known in 2013, NASA announced the discovery of the 10,000th NEO - Near Earth Objects on Earth-crossing orbits - in June 2013. An alarming number especially when we know that most NEOs are discovered just as they fly past Earth, and very often inside lunar distance. Other estimates place between 100,000 and 1,000,000 more undiscovered NEOs on similar Earth-crossing orbits, increasing the current estimated total range of asteroids in the solar system to 100 million.

The number of discovered comets has also increased in recent years. While newly discovered comets were virtually nil at the beginning of the 1990s (for example, only one comet was discovered in 1995, namely 1995 O1 Hale-Bopp), by 2000 over 150 new comets were being discovered per year, a figure that increased to 265 by 2009. Note that the figures between 2009 and 2013 are not yet finalized. Once updated, I fully expect the final count for those years to be higher than the current count.

Rather appropriately, 2013 was declared the 'Year of the Comets', with a high number of active comets in the Sun's vicinity. By November 21st, 17 comets were visible with a small telescope, of which five exhibited a magnitude between +4 and +7.5 - meaning they could be seen with binoculars - and two of which (ISON and Encke) could be seen with the naked eye.

Remember, these are only the identified comets, bright enough to be observed at a long distance. Most 'comets' remain invisible (as 'asteroids') until they start glowing as a result of the heliosphere-induced electric stress they experience when they enter the solar system. If the exceptional fireball events in 2013 were anything to go by, 2014 may have even more celestial surprises in store for us.