CATASTROPHE

THE THREAT TO LIFE ON EARTH

NOAH'S FLOOD STORY CONTAINS A GERM OF TRUTH WHICH IS MASSIVELY RELEVANT FOR OUR DAY. THAT MESSAGE IS NOT 'REPENT' BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY A FLOOD FROM HEAVEN COULD COME AGAIN.

EVEN A SMALL ASTEROID [ABOUT 200 METRES ACROSS] STRIKING ANY MAJOR OCEAN WOULD CAUSE IMMENSE TSUNAMIS THAT WOULD WIPE SURROUNDING SHORES CLEAN OF HUMAN LIFE.

The Solar System is full of asteroidal and cometary junk. Rocks and ice-bergs large and small have pummelled our planet for billions of years. Moons and planets throughout the Solar System bare testimony to this through the craters that have scarred their surfaces over the eons.

AND WHY DOES IT MATTER?

Many major economic centres are situated on or near the shores of the major oceans, the Atlantic and the Pacific. A smallish asteroid [200 metres across] impacting in the ocean would produce a tsunami that would wipe the surrounding shores clean for many kilometeres inland. Such devastation may explain why very few peoples lived on the Atlantic coast of Europe until the Vikings. Long-lasting memories of waves scouring country-side perhaps
Such a disaster is hard to imagine, or is it? Chinese annals and South American myths speak of waves from the sea causing great devastation, the Chinese reports placing it in c.2350 BC. Another curious fact is the rather recent spread of the Pacific Islanders, since about just after that time. The oldest cities in South America date to about 2200 BC, the lateness suggesting a recovery of civilisation after a 'Flood'. Noah's Flood is traditionally dated to between 2350 and 2150 BC, perhaps placing it amongst the events of the time, though Mesopotamian history suggests it occurred about 3100 BC. Although the Black Sea has been suggested as the site of Noah's Flood its traditional location is in Mesopotamia. But what happened? A meteor strike to the Persian Gulf that sent an immense sea-wave to devour ancient Sumer?

As terrifying as such a catastrophe may seem there is much that we can do to prevent it. We have the technology available to deflect and detect the smaller and most numerous of comets and asteroids. Project SPACEGUARD is a telescopic survey of nearby asteroids that intends to spot a possible world-wrecking menace before it reaches our planet

But what can stop an asteroid? For starters, many will never reach the ground because of our atmosphere. Most are made of stone and this vaporises and detonates before it reaches a destructive altitude from the surface. Up to a certain size. Larger asteroids will get through and cause immense damage. With mere hours of warning nothing could be done, but with several years of warning and co-operation amongst space-faring nations, then several options exist. The last minute rescues loved by the movies are wholly unrealistic. An asteroid a mere one hundred metres across weighs between a million and four million tons. A few nuclear bombs might fracture such a rock in the last hour before impact, but they would never give it enough of a push to save the Earth. Deflection requires a long-time so a small push can have a larger effect.

Asteroids vary in material strength and this affects the type of deflection technique needed. Many asteroids are loosely held together rubble-piles - shattered by a collision millennia before, the weak gravity of the rocks keep them together. Such an asteroid could not be deflected by merely hitting it with nuclear weapons, as in the movie "Deep Impact". Such an asteroid could be deflected by detonating neutron bombs nearby. The wave of neutron radiation that hits the near surface of the 'roid would vaporise a layer from the surface and this would act as a jet to push the 'roid.

For 'roids or comets that are rich in water and materially cohesive then solar-power becomes a viable weapon. Imagine an immense mirror in space acting as a huge magnifying glass that vaporises material from the object, producing a jet and a steady 'shove' away from the doomsday course for Earth. Thanks also to the steady force caused by light, such a mirror could propel itself out to the target and rapidly.

But our ultimate protection would be to 'tame' the wild rocks of space and convert them to building colonies in space. An interlinked system of orbitting habitats could be strung out between the planets to act as 'cheap' transport between worlds. A space colony would need many millions of tons of material to provide shielding from cosmic rays and the wild asteroids provide such a resource, as well as water, metals and organic material. Many asteroids contain several percent of nitrogen-rich oily sludge known as 'kerogen', the 'oil' part of oil-shale. With such resources the asteroids close to Earth and between Mars and Jupiter in the Main Belt, could support a population millions of times greater than Earth's current population.

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