Suddenly, With No Warning, We Were Not Hit

Should scientists who knew a 35-meter (114 ft.) asteroid was on a possible collision course with Earth on Monday given the public a warning?

Initially I wasn't interested in this line of thought. But as I was listening to a bit of KFAQ (Tulsa) radio's Chris Medlock show as listeners were weighing in, and I realized I had an opinion after all.

Okay, so it missed by about 40,000 miles, or about twice the orbit of geosynchronous satellites. Yet that's pretty close in space distances and, most importantly, there was reportedly a great deal of uncertainty as to whether the rock would hit. There is also uncertainty about our next encounter with 2009 DD45, since the Earth's gravity may have made a closer pass more likely (but not for a long time).

Had the object hit on land, it would have produced an impact (complete with fireball and dust cloud) not quite equal the size of the World Famous Meteor Crater about 20 miles west of Winslow, Arizona. That blast of 50,000 years ago produced a nice-sized hole 4,000 ft. in diameter. That blast was in the 2.5 megaton range (150 times Hiroshima), so you get the idea. The kind of thing that can ruin your entire week, without the radioactive fallout.

Yes, I think we should've been informed. Sure, a handful of people might panic, although several recent studies have shown that people do not panic nearly as often as government and Hollywood types think that they do.

What it would have given us is an opportunity to think on the things that are important: our impotence against the real forces at play in the universe, and our reliance on Divine Providence for our daily existence. It could have been a time for quiet reflection, apologies and reconciliations between family members or friends, perhaps (for some of us) a trip to the confessional to "clean out the spiritual clutter," just in case.

No doubt, some will think, 'Hey, Dave, why don'tcha do all that stuff every day, so you don't hafta do it in a hurry?' Well, I would say, I try but sometimes I get behind. And so I speak for all of us mere mortals who aren't nearly so perfect. We wouldn't mind a national emergency broadcast once in awhile to get right with the Lord and our fellow man.

But back to topic: though the odds of any one area getting hit were still astronomically low, what would have been the harm?

We were denied that opportunity, and I wonder if the powers that be would ever paying us the respect we are due as fellow human beings even if they knew for certain that a major impact event were going to happen.

Someone will probably suggest that the scientists involved were simply too busy to think about a public alert. I don't buy that. Scientists are human, too, and I'm sure that several governments either monitor closely their work or are kept informed of any major developments. If not, then we are wasting millions subsidizing such research.