We've Got Problems
The novel I'm currently working on takes a hard look at life on our small blue planet. Unless you've been hiding in a cave for the past five years, you know what most of those problems are, but I'll mention a couple anyway.
Near the top of the list is climate change. Deny it at your peril. It's real and getting worse. Some scientists, in fact, believe we're past the tipping point. Since I'm not a scientist, I can't say one way or the other. But I'm able to read. Sea-level rise is a fact. So is glacier melt. So is the breaking off of massive chunks of Antarctica. If you're as old as I am, this may not affect you. But it will affect your children and grandchildren, especially if they live near the ocean, which will inundate a number of U.S. cities by 2050 at the latest.
A second problem, and one I'm spending much of my time on these days, is errant space objects. Asteroids, tiny ones, enter Earth's atmosphere virtually every day of the year. The smallest ones settle to the planet as dust. Larger ones may land as small chunks. More than 5,000 tons of extraterrestrial dust land on our planet every year. You and I don't see it because the debris is generally tiny. And this is good.
On the other hand, not all space objects are tiny. NASA maintains a global network of sophisticated telescopes and highly trained observers to keep track of the largest objects, meaning those that would wreak havoc on the planet if they hit. This is a 24x7x365 effort that seeks to warn us of a potentially catastrophic impact, and the work is done brilliantly without any input from you or me. We're simply the beneficiaries.
Here's the problem, though. Not even the most sophisticated hardware can spot all the objects that could be a significant problem. It's just not possible. There are new space telescopes on the drawing board, but even they will not guarantee detection of dangerous asteroids or comets.
IF we succeed in spotting a dangerous object that's on a collision course with Earth AND we see it years in advance, maybe we'll be able to deflect or destroy it. But it's possible we'll detect the object only months, weeks, or days before its arrival. In that case, of course, we've got a huge problem.
I'll leave the details for my next novel. In the meantime, go online and read about NASA's Center for Near-Earth Objects. I guarantee you'll be interested.
Near the top of the list is climate change. Deny it at your peril. It's real and getting worse. Some scientists, in fact, believe we're past the tipping point. Since I'm not a scientist, I can't say one way or the other. But I'm able to read. Sea-level rise is a fact. So is glacier melt. So is the breaking off of massive chunks of Antarctica. If you're as old as I am, this may not affect you. But it will affect your children and grandchildren, especially if they live near the ocean, which will inundate a number of U.S. cities by 2050 at the latest.
A second problem, and one I'm spending much of my time on these days, is errant space objects. Asteroids, tiny ones, enter Earth's atmosphere virtually every day of the year. The smallest ones settle to the planet as dust. Larger ones may land as small chunks. More than 5,000 tons of extraterrestrial dust land on our planet every year. You and I don't see it because the debris is generally tiny. And this is good.
On the other hand, not all space objects are tiny. NASA maintains a global network of sophisticated telescopes and highly trained observers to keep track of the largest objects, meaning those that would wreak havoc on the planet if they hit. This is a 24x7x365 effort that seeks to warn us of a potentially catastrophic impact, and the work is done brilliantly without any input from you or me. We're simply the beneficiaries.
Here's the problem, though. Not even the most sophisticated hardware can spot all the objects that could be a significant problem. It's just not possible. There are new space telescopes on the drawing board, but even they will not guarantee detection of dangerous asteroids or comets.
IF we succeed in spotting a dangerous object that's on a collision course with Earth AND we see it years in advance, maybe we'll be able to deflect or destroy it. But it's possible we'll detect the object only months, weeks, or days before its arrival. In that case, of course, we've got a huge problem.
I'll leave the details for my next novel. In the meantime, go online and read about NASA's Center for Near-Earth Objects. I guarantee you'll be interested.
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