| Asteroid
'to hit us on March 16, 2880'
www.smh.com.au, March 16 2005
A big fan of
movies such as Armageddon and Deep Impact I found that
the title of this article grabbed my attention straight
away. A good, catchy title is very important tool for
grabbing the audience’s attention and this title does
just that.
I think that
articles like this one are very good for getting people
interested and excited about astronomy. This is because
I think that most people would find that the prospect
of an asteroid hitting the earth very interesting, as
it is something that generally only happens in science
fiction movies. I feel that it is important to get the
public interested in space and space exploration, because
without public enthusiasm the government is less likely
to invest money into space research.
I thought that
it was especially interesting that 50-metre objects pass
by all the time but are undetected. In lectures we learnt
about the Barringer Meteor crater that is 1.2km across
and 200m deep. This was caused by the impact of a 50m
object and, looking at the picture, I find it amazing
just how big a crater such an object will make if it hits
the earth.
I thought that
the authors did a very good job of relating the statistics
to something that the average person can understand and
relate to. For example rather than saying that an asteroid
impact would create a hole about however many km across
and deep they say that if it hit it could “obliterate
a land mass the size of Britain or Japan and kill about
60 million people”. This helps the audience to fully understand
the impact that such a collision would have. They have
put the statistics into terms that people can understand.
The authors
have also tied the possibility of an asteroid impact with
other natural disasters that have a higher probability
of occurring. It is important that people aware of the
potential disasters, such as tsunamis and earthquakes,
that could befall them so that they may be better prepared.
I think that
this article is worthwhile for these reasons and I think
that they have used the drastic case of an asteroid impact
cleverly to draw attention to these important issues.
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