If one rewinds 500 years, to when exploration of new worlds involved sailing the oceans, the discovery of the Americas introduced viruses which decimated the native population at that time [7]. That in itself was far from a unique event in history, of course. There have been many occurrences throughout history where travel between distant lands has resulted in the introduction of devastating plagues to one population or the other — not least the Black Death, which arrived in Europe from commercial travel with Asia in the 1300s [8]. Meanwhile, 2020 has reminded us how a novel virus can prove virtually unstoppable from spreading worldwide in a matter of months and reaching pandemic level, once introduced to our now interconnected world [9].

Indeed when the first astronauts returned from the Moon in the 60s, they had to undergo weeks of quarantine as a precaution against introducing a lunar pathogen to Earth [10]. We now know the Moon to be a sterile world, but this should not give us a false sense of security when visiting and returning from other worlds, which are far more likely to harbour microbial life. It is quite plausible to consider that any microbes which have evolved to survive in the harsh environments on other worlds could multiply out of control if introduced to a more fertile environment on Earth. The likelihood of any such foreign microbes being capable of becoming infectious pathogens to our species is difficult to measure, but one could still cause problems regardless, by undermining Earth’s ecosystem in competing with native microbial life as a runaway invasive species.

Fortunately, due to the vast distances involved in inter-planetary travel, returning astronauts would likely show symptoms of infection from any dangerous pathogen long before reaching home, as such a journey would be expected to take many months, even with more advanced propulsion technology than we use in space travel today. That is not to say they could not inadvertently return with microbial life on board — or even on the exterior of craft: Earth’s tardigrades, for example, have proven quite durable in journeys into outer space [11].

Undoubtedly, finding life on any other world — even if just primitive microbial life — would be hailed as an unprecedented scientific discovery. As that potential draws nearer, any such discovery should surely be met with due caution, rather than wild excitement. While not as dramatic as an invasion of Spiders from Mars, the discovery of microbial life on other worlds could prove to be a far more sobering prospect — and pose new ethical questions of whether to leave their ecosystems preserved intact, or take the risk blending them with ours.

[1] Strange chemical in clouds of Venus defies explanation. Could it be a sign of life?
https://www.space.com/venus-clouds-possible-life-chemical-discovery.html

[2] How Martian Microbes Could Survive in the Salty Puddles of the Red Planet https://www.space.com/salt-tolerant-microbes-life-on-mars.html

[3] If There’s Life on Saturn’s Moon Enceladus, It Might Look Like This https://www.wired.com/story/if-theres-life-on-saturns-moon-e…like-this/

[4] ‘Racing certainty’ there’s life on Europa, says leading UK space scientist
https://phys.org/news/2020-02-certainty-life-europa-mars-uk.html

[5] The dwarf planet Ceres might be home to an underground ocean of water
https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/08/11/1006447/ceres-la…alty-water

[6] ‘Possibility of life’: scientists map Saturn’s exotic moon Titan
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-space-titan-idUSKBN1XS2H2

[7] How Europeans brought sickness to the New World
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/06/how-europeans-brought-sickness-new-world

[8] The Black Death: The Greatest Catastrophe Ever
https://www.historytoday.com/archive/black-death-greatest-catastrophe-ever

[9] Coronavirus: A timeline of how the deadly COVID-19 outbreak is evolving
https://www.pharmaceutical-technology.com/news/coronavirus-a…k-evolved/

[10] Apollo 11 Astronauts Spent 3 Weeks in Quarantine, Just in Case of Moon Plague
https://www.space.com/apollo-11-astronauts-quarantined-after-splashdown.html

[11] How do tardigrades survive in space?
https://cen.acs.org/biological-chemistry/biochemistry/tardig…ace/97/i41

The goal of the FCC is to greatly push the energy and intensity frontiers of particle colliders, with the aim of reaching collision energies of 100 TeV, in the search for new physics [2]. Below linked is a technical note I wrote & distributed last year on 100 TeV collisions (at the time referencing the proposed China supercollider [3][4]), highlighting the weakness of the White Dwarf safety argument at these energy levels, and a call for a more detailed study of the Neutron star safety argument, if to be relied on as a solitary astrophysical assurance. The argument applies equally to the FCC of course:

The Next Great Supercollider — Beyond the LHC : https://environmental-safety.webs.com/TechnicalNote-EnvSA03.pdf

The LSAG, and others including myself, have already written on the topic of astrophysical assurances at length before. The impact of CR on Neutron stars is the most compelling of those assurances with respect to new higher energy colliders (other analogies such as White Dwarf capture based assurances don’t hold up quite as well at higher energy levels). CERN will undoubtedly publish a new paper on such astrophysical assurances as part of the FCC development process, though would one anticipate it sooner rather than later, to lay to rest concerns of outsider-debate incubating to a larger audience?

Hope springs eternal. Hearing that folk from China’s IHEP were later in contact with the LSAG on this specific issue, one infers due diligence is in mind, albeit seemingly in retrospect again, on the premise that as CERN take up the baton, significant progress in collecting further input for the overall assessment (eg from cosmic rays, direct astrophysical observations, etc) is expected in the ~20 years timescale of development.

Meanwhile those of us keen on new science frontiers, and large scale engineering projects, have exciting times ahead yet again with a new CERN flagship.

[1] Cern draws up plans for machine four times the size of Large Hadron Collider https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/jan/15/cern-draws-u…rge-hadron

[2] The Future Circular Collider Study (FCC) at CERN https://home.cern/science/accelerators/future-circular-collider

[3] The next super-collider, The Economist, 2018. https://www.economist.com/leaders/2018/01/11/the-next-super-…t-in-china

[4] Reflecting on China’s Ambition to Build the World’s Most Powerful Supercollider, Existential Risk/Opportunity Singularity Management, 2015. http://www.global-risk-sig.org/erosmB9F.pdf

[5] The Next Great Supercollider — Beyond the LHC : https://environmental-safety.webs.com/TechnicalNote-EnvSA03.pdf

[6] Progress in Seeking a More Thorough Safety Analysis for China’s Supercollider http://www.global-risk-sig.org/EROSM7Ui.pdf

The technical note follows on from a modest paper I wrote in 2012 (Discussions on the Hypothesis that Cosmic Ray Exposure on Sirius B Negates Terrestrial MBH Concerns from Colliders), which concerned micro-black hole (MBH) production and the white dwarf safety assurance. There I demonstrated that not only are most white dwarf stars not suitable as a safety assurance, but that those hand-picked for the 2008 safety report had magnetic field strength measured to just 99% confidence within the range for safety assurance. That is not to say that the LHC safety argument was only 99% reliable — just that one of the cornerstone assurances was. The affirmation of these measurements was needed for a safety assurance to LHC p-p collisions based on astronomical observations – as a safety assurance that is not based on Hawking Radiation theory — but based on verifiable measurement. The technical note captures the official LSAG (CERN) response on the matter after internal review at CERN in late 2012, which had remained archived from email discussions until recently, when those conclusions were formalised into this technical note:

Link to the technical note: http://environmental-safety.webs.com/TechnicalNote-EnvSA01.pdf

That conclusion was fortunately, as expected, one of safety: significant progress had been made on the accuracy of B field measurement technology since the original 2008 safety report — and after a survey of latest literature, one finds that there are now extensive examples of WD with fields measured with uncertainty ranges within the 1–100 kG range required for assurance. However — despite an eventual conclusion of safety on this one matter (MBH concerns from p-p collisions) I would like to reiterate a point that I made back in 2008, that there is an obligation on industry to keep safety debate open and honest. We are not likely to see credible argument on any of the other concerns to LHC operations (strangelet production, magnetic monopoles, de sitter space transitions and vacuum bubbles, and so on), but these discussions do illustrate that re-visitations can be necessary.

Whilst onwards we strive to find new understandings to the universe, and to engineer new ways of being, we need to stand back and take a look at where we are, lest we get lost.

Whilst the surface of Venus invokes classical images of Hell — a dark sea of fire and brimstone, where temperatures raise to an incredible 450°C — hot enough to melt lead, tin and zinc, and pressurised to such an extent (92 bar) that in these conditions the atmosphere ghosts in and out of an ocean of supercritical carbon dioxide — sulphur dioxide tints the air, and sulphuric acid rains down on volcanic plains. One just needs to look to the skies…

At about 50 km to 60 km above the surface, the upper reaches of the Venusian troposphere, the environment is quite different. At these high altitudes the temperature is in our comfort zone of 0°C to 50°C, and the air pressure similar as habitable regions of Earth.

An atmosphere rich in carbon dioxide (96.5%) and abundant solar radiation, the conditions are ideal for photosynthesis. One could imagine solar energy powered crafts could easily sustain ecosystems where the ideal conditions for photosynthesis ensure an abundant source of food and oxygen for inhabitants. The solar energy here is abundant and in all directions — the high reflectivity of clouds below causes the amount of light reflected upward to be nearly the same as that coming in from above, with an upward solar intensity of 90% — so aircraft would not need to concern about electricity or energy consumption. Indeed, that energy would not even be needed to keep the craft airborne — as the oxygen store would also double up as a natural lifting agent for such aircrafts, as in the Venusian atmosphere of carbon dioxide, oxygen is a lifting gas — in the same way helium is a lifting gas on Earth. With temperature, pressure, gravity, and a constant source of food and oxygen via plant growth all accounted for, not to mention close proximity to Earth, waste & water recycling would be the main challenge for the permanence of such Venusian aircraft — where the initial establishment of a balanced ecosystem is key. The engineering challenge would be far less than that of establishing a colony or base on Mars. Just don’t look down!

A recent article in ExtremeTech drew attention to the world’s first quantum meta-material, created recently by a team of German material scientists at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. It is believed such quantum meta-material can overcome the main problem with traditional meta-materials based on split-ring resonators, which can only be tuned to a small range of frequencies and not conducive to operate across a useful slice of spectrum. While fanciful applications such as quantum birefringence and super-radiant phase transitions are cited it is perhaps invisibility cloaks that until very recently seemed a forte of science fiction.

Breakthroughs at the National Tsing-Hua University in Taiwan have also made great strides in building quantum invisibility cloaks, and as the arXiv blog on TechnologyReview recently commented ‘invisibility cloaks are all the rage these days’. With such breakthroughs, these technologies may soon find mass take-up in future consumer products & security, and also have abundant military uses — where it may find the financial stimulus to advance the technology to its true capabilities. Indeed researchers in China have been looking into how to mass-produce invisibility cloaks from materials such as Teflon. We’ll all be invisible soon.

—

[1] The first quantum meta-material raises more questions than it answers
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/168060-the-first-quantum-…it-answers

[2] Quantum Invisibility Cloak Hides Objects from Reality
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/516006/quantum-invisibi…m-reality/

[3] Hide the interior region of core-shell nano-particles with quantum invisible cloaks
http://www.arxiv.org/abs/1306.2120

[4] Chinese Researchers Make An Invisibility Cloak For Mass Production
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/519166/chinese-research…5-minutes/

The principal reason helium is so important is due to its ultra-low boiling-point and inert nature making it the ultimate coolant of the human race. As the isotope helium-3, helium is also used in nuclear fusion research [2]. However, our Earth supplies of helium are being used at an unprecedented rate and could be depleted within a generation [4] and at the current rate of consumption we will run out within 25 to 30 years. As the gas is often thought of as a cheap gas it is often wasted. However, those who understand the situation, such as Prof Richardson, co-chair of a recent US National Research Council inquiry into the coming helium shortage, warn that the gas is not cheap due to the supply being inexhaustible, but because of the Helium Privatisation Act passed in 1996 by the US Congress.

Helium only accounts for 0.00052% of the Earth’s atmosphere and the majority of the helium harvested comes from beneath the ground being extracted from minerals or tapped gas deposits. This makes it one of the rarest elements of any form on the planet. However, the Act required the helium stores [4] held underground near Amarillo in Texas to be sold off at a fixed rate by 2015 regardless of the market value, to pay off the original cost of the reserve. The Amarillo storage facility holds around half the Earth’s stocks of helium: around a billion cubic meters of the gas. The US currently supplies around 80 percent of the world’s helium supplies, and once this supply is exhausted one can expect the cost of the remaining helium on Earth to increase rapidly — as this is in all practicality quite a non-renewable resource.

There is no chemical way of manufacturing helium, and the supplies we have originated in the very slow radioactive alpha decay that occurs in rocks. It has taken 4.7 billion years for the Earth to accumulate our helium reserves, which we will have exhausted within about a hundred years of the US’s National Helium Reserve having been established in 1925. When this helium is released to the atmosphere, in helium balloons for example, it is lost forever — eventually escaping into space [5][6]. So what shall we do when this crucial resource runs out? Well, in some cases liquid nitrogen (−195°C) may be adopted as a replacement — but in many cases liquid nitrogen cannot be used as a stand alone coolant as tends to be trickier to work with (triple point and melting point at around −210°C) — so the liquid helium is used because it is capable of staying liquid at the extreme cool temperatures required. No more helium means no more helium liquid (−269°C) that is used to cool the NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance apparels), and in other machines such as MRI scanners. One wonders therefore must we look towards space exploration to replenish our most rare of resources on Earth?

Helium is actually the second most abundant resource in the Universe, accounting for as much as 24 percent of the Universe’s mass [7] — mostly in stars and the interstellar medium. Mining gas giants for helium has been proposed in a NASA memorandum on the topic [8] which have also have great abundance of this gas, and it has been suggested that such atmospheric mining may be easier than mining on the surfaces of outer-planet moons. While this had focused on the possibility of mining Helium-3 from the atmosphere of Jupiter, with inherent complications of delta-V and radiation exposure, a more appropriate destination for mining regular helium may rest with the more placid ice-giant Uranus (not considered in the memorandum as the predicted concentration of Helium-3 in the helium portion of the atmosphere of Uranus is quite small). Leaving aside specific needs for Helium-3 which can be mined in sufficient volume much closer — on our Moon [9], a large-scale mining mission to Uranus for the more common non-radioactive isotope could ensure the Earth does not have to compromise so many important sectors of modern technology in the near future due to an exhaustion of our helium stock. A relatively lower wind speed (900 km/h, comparing favorably to 2,100 km/h on Neptune), with a lower G-force (surface gravity 0.886 g, escape velocity 21.3 km/s) [10] and an abundance of helium in its atmosphere (15 ± 3%) could make it a more attractive option, despite the distances (approx 20 AU), extreme cold (50-70K) and radiation belts involved. Rationalising complexities in radiation, distance, time and temperatures involved for human piloting of such a cargo craft, it could be considered more suited to an automated mission, remote-controlled under robotics similar to orbiter probes — even though this would introduce an additional set of challenges — in AI and remote control.

However, we have a Catch 22 — NASA space programs use the gas to aid their shuttles [12]. Liquid fuels are volatile. They are packed with corrosive material that could destroy a spacecraft’s casing. To avoid this problem, a craft is filled with helium gas. If this could be replaced in such shuttles with some alternative, and advances in space transportation made to significantly increase the cargo of such ships over interplanetary-distances, perhaps a case could be made for such ambitious gas mining missions, though at present given current NASA expenditure, this would seem like fantasy [13]. Realistic proposals for exploration of Uranus [14] fall far short of these requirements. Helium is a rare and unique element we need for many industrial purposes, but if we don’t conserve and recycle our helium, we are dooming mankind to a future shortage of helium, with little helium left for future generations here on Earth [15] — as for now, replenishing such from space seems like a rather long shot.

————————————————

[1] 8 Surprising High-Tech Uses for Helium — TechNewsDaily
http://www.technewsdaily.com/5769-8-surprising-high-tech-helium.html
[2] Helium-3 as used in Nuclear Fusion Research
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium-3
[3] The world is running out of helium — Nobel prize winner Prof Robert Richardson.
http://phys.org/news201853523.html#jCp
[4] The Federal Helium Reserve
http://www.blm.gov/nm/st/en/prog/energy/helium/federal_helium_program.html
[5] Why the World Will Run Out of Helium
http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2012/12/12/why-the-w…of-helium/
[6] Will We Run Out of Helium?
http://chemistry.about.com/b/2012/11/11/will-we-run-out-of-helium.htm
[7] Where Is Helium Found — Universe Today
http://www.universetoday.com/75719/where-is-helium-found/
[8] Bryan Palaszewski. “Atmospheric Mining in the Outer Solar System“
http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/RT/2005/RT/RTB-palaszewski1.html
[9] Mining the Moon for Helium-3 — RocketCitySpacePioneers
http://www.rocketcityspacepioneers.com/space/mining-the-moon-for-helium-3
[10] Uranus — Physical characteristics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranus
[11] Uranus’s Magnetosphere — NASA Voyager VPL
http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/science/uranus_magnetosphere.html
[12] Space shuttle use of propellants and fluids — NASA KSC
http://www-pao.ksc.nasa.gov/kscpao/nasafact/pdf/ssp.pdf
[13] Project Icarus: The Gas Mines of Uranus
http://news.discovery.com/space/project-icarus-helium-3-mining-uranus-110531.htm
[14] The case for a Uranus orbiter, Mark Hofstadter et al.
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/decadal/opag/UranusOrbiter_v7.pdf
[15] Why the World Will Run Out of Helium
http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2012/12/12/why-the-w…of-helium/

Fukushima leak is ‘much worse than we were led to believe’ / Aug 22, 2013, BBC NEWS http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23779561
Serious: Japan hikes Fukushima radiation danger level / August 21, 2013 RT NEWS http://rt.com/news/japan-fukushima-level-three-762/
Japan’s nuclear crisis deepens, China expresses ‘shock’ / Aug 21, 2013/ reuters http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/21/us-japan-fukushima…2B20130821
Worse than Chernobyl: The inner threat of Fukushima crisis / Aug 20, 2013/ RT http://rt.com/op-edge/chernobyl-fukushima-crisis-catastrophe-715/
Japan nuclear agency upgrades Fukushima alert level / Aug 21, 2013 / BBC NEWS http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-23776345
Fukushima apocalypse: Years of ‘duct tape fixes’ could result in ‘millions of deaths’ / Aug 18 2013 / RT http://rt.com/news/fukushima-apocalypse-fuel-removal-598/
Fukushima’s Radioactive Water Leak: What You Should Know / National Geographic, Aug 2013 http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2013/08/13080…ater-leak/

Not so fast — Even if such a new force did take effect in these scenarios, one would expect such to have negligible impact on safety assurances. Official estimated accretion rates are many many orders of magnitude lower than estimated radiation rates — and are estimates which concur with observational evidence in the longevity of white-dwarf stars.

That is not to conclude such new forces are necessary to continue debate. Certain old disputed parameter ranges suggest different accretion rates relative to radiative rates which could bridge that vast breadth between such estimates, theorizing catastrophic outcomes [3] are not necessarily refuted by safety assurances — least on white-dwarf longevity.

Indeed a more pertinent point, that if equilibrium could manifest between radiation and accretion rates, micro-black-holes trapped in Earth’s gravitation could become persistent heat engines with considerable flux [2] to cause environmental concern in planetary heating.

Meanwhile, that stalwart safety assurance on micro-black-hole accretion risks, the longevity of white dwarf stars, finds new argument where the law of angular momentum conservation is considered as a significant factor in negating the G&M [4] calculated stopping distances of naturally occurring micro-black-holes on white dwarf stars due to it enforcing an immediate disengagement on striking quarks at such near-luminal speeds — this unlike LHC produced micro-black-holes, it is argued, which enjoy a 30,000 times longer interaction time [5].

One does not feel motivated to run for ‘end is nigh’ placards in such fringe discussions, but one can surmise that discussion on such topics of LHC safety assurance are far from the end of their rope in certain circles. Thank you to those involved for their continued discussions.

———————————————–

[1] Attractive Optical Forces from Blackbody Radiation — Sonnleitner, Ritsche-Marte, Ritsch, 2013. ( http://prl.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v111/i2/e023601 )
[2] Terrestrial Flux of Hypothetical Stable MBH Produced in Colliders relative to Natural CR Exposure — 2012. ( http://vixra.org/pdf/1203.0055v2.pdf )
[3] Potential catastrophic risk from metastable quantum-black holes produced at particle colliders — R. Plaga, 2008/2009. ( http://arxiv.org/pdf/0808.1415v3.pdf )
[4] Astrophysical implications of hypothetical stable TeV-scale black holes — Giddings, Mangano — 2008 ( http://arxiv.org/abs/0806.3381 )
[5] Eintein’s Equivalence Principle, C-Global, and the Widely Ignored Factor 30,000 — O.E Rossler, 2013. ( http://eujournal.org/index.php/esj/article/view/1577/1583 )

In what could turn out to be a major breakthrough for the advancement of long-distance communications in space exploration, several problems are resolved — where if a civilization is eventually established on a star system many light years away, for example, such as on one of the recently discovered Goldilocks Zone super-Earths in the Gliese 667C star system, then communications back to people on Earth may after all be… instantaneous.

However, implications do not just stop there either. As recently reported in The Register [5], researchers in Israel at the University of Jerusalem, have established that quantum tangling can be used to send data across both TIME AND SPACE [6]. Their recent paper entitled ‘Entanglement Between Photons that have Never Coexisted’ [7] describes how photon-to-photon entanglement can be used to connect with photons in their past/future, opening up an understanding into how one may be able to engineer technology to not just communicate instantaneously across space — but across space-time.

Whilst in the past many have questioned what benefits have been gained in quantum physics research and in particular large research projects such as the LHC, it would seem that the field of quantum entanglement may be one of the big pay-offs. Whist it has yet to be categorically proven that quantum entanglement can be used as a communication channel, and the majority opinion dismisses it, one can expect much activity in quantum entanglement over the next decade. It may yet spearhead the next technological revolution.

[1] www.technologyreview.com/view/516636/physicists-discover-the…te-control
[2] Quantum Teleportation of Dynamics http://arxiv.org/abs/1304.0319
[3] Bounding the speed of ‘spooky action at a distance’ http://arxiv.org/abs/1303.0614
[4] http://www.universetoday.com/103131/three-potentially-habita…iese-667c/
[5] The Register — Biting the hand that feeds IT — http://www.theregister.co.uk/
[6] http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/06/03/quantum_boffins_get_spooky_with_time/
[7] Entanglement Between Photons that have Never Coexisted http://arxiv.org/abs/1209.4191

Indeed, following the near ‘double whammy’ last week, where a 15 meter meteor caught us by surprise and caused extensive damage and injury in central Russia, while the larger anticipated 50 meter asteroid swept to within just 27,000 km of Earth, media reported an immediate response from astronomers with plans to create state-of-the-art detection systems to give warning of incoming asteroids and meteoroids. Concerns can be abated.
ATLAS, the Advanced Terrestrial-Impact Last Alert System is due to begin operations in 2015, and expects to give a one-week warning for a small asteroid – called “a city killer” – and three weeks for a larger “county killer” — providing time for evacuation of risk areas.

Deep Space Industries (a US Company), which is preparing to launch a series of small spacecraft later this decade aimed at surveying nearby asteroids for mining opportunities, could also be used to monitor smaller difficult-to-detect objects that threaten to strike Earth.

However — despite ISON doom-merchants — we are already in relatively safe hands. The SENTRY MONITORING SYSTEM maintains a Sentry Risk Table of possible future Earth impact events, typically tracking objects 50 meters or larger — none of which are currently expected to hit Earth. Other sources will tell you that comet ISON is not expected to pass any closer than 0.42 AU (63,000,000 km) from Earth — though it should still provide spectacular viewing in our night skies come December 2013. A recently trending threat, 140-metre wide asteroid AG5 was given just a 1-in-625 chance of hitting Earth in February 2040, though more recent measurements have reduced this risk to almost nil. The Torino Scale is currently used to rate the risk category of asteroid and comet impacts on a scale of 0 (no hazard) to 10 (globally-impacting certain collisions). At present, almost all known asteroids and comets are categorized as level 0 on this scale (AG5 was temporarily categorized at level 1 until recent measurements, and 2007 VK184, a 130 meter asteroid due for approach circa 2048–2057 is the only currently listed one categorized at level 1 or more).

An asteroid striking land will cause a crater far larger than its size. The diameter calculated in kilometers is = (energy of impact)(1/3.4)/106.77. As such, if an asteroid the size of AG5 (140-meter wide) were to strike Earth, it would create a crater over twice the diameter of Barringer Meteor Crater in northern Arizona and affect an area far larger — or on striking water, it would create a global-reach tsunami. Fortunately, the frequency of such an object striking Earth is quite low — perhaps once every 100,000 years. It is the smaller ones, such as the one which exploded over Russia last week which are the greater concern. These occur perhaps once every 100 years and are not easily detectable by our current methods — justifying the $5m funding NASA contributed to the new ATLAS development in Hawaii.

We are a long way from deploying a response system to deflect/destroy incoming meteors, though at least with ATLAS we will be more confident of getting out of the way when the sky falls in. More information on ATLAS: http://www.fallingstar.com/index.php