The recent Russian meteorite news story that struck the world (literally) was a phenomenon we don't hear about too often, yet these deadly rocks pass by our atmosphere all the time, and we turn a blind eye. The chunks of rock from outside our earthly realm have now landed on our turf, and the fragments are estimated to be worth up to £6,400 according to Sky News. Now that certainly is an expensive rock.
Predicting events like the disaster in Moscow last week is difficult. I mean, it seems to be the case that it's difficult enough to predict the weather forecast for the week ahead, let alone predicting occurrences outside our own arena. The reaction, at least in Britain, is that we get more worried about disruptions due to snow than we do about an incoming meteorite.
I think there is definitely cause for concern for this type of thing. Although perhaps inevitable, we can take measures to make the inevitable a little less damaging. In a newspaper I read last Saturday, NASA allegedly claimed that they have little interest in meteorites less than 1km in size due to what little devastating impact they have. Perhaps injuring around 1,200 people is little impact on a global scale, but to Russian citizens of Chelyabinsk and its government, the impact is substantial, with over £21 million lost due to damages. NASA describes the asteroid that hit Russia to be a "tiny object" - and although that may be true in relative terms due to what else lurks out in the universe; when something like that affects us, nothing is ever just "tiny." An object that is 45 feet across, weighing 7,000 tons and travelling around 40,000mph isn't all that insignificant if you compare it with the dimensions and speeds we're used to on Earth. NASA are right to give factual evidence, but they miss a central point: the humanity of the issue. No matter how large or small an issue, if it still devastates life it's something to be acknowledged, not simply written off as a lucky escape. True, we were lucky something bigger didn't hit us this time, but that doesn't mean we should ignore the suffering of the injured people in Russia. Even the smallest degree of suffering is to be acknowledged as a cause of trauma, no matter how insignificant it may seem in the grand scheme of things. All pain is relative as John Stuart Mill might have said, and I think he's probably right. It's the perspective with which we view such events as this that matters and I think in the quest for scientific progress, scientists are often too caught up in their own little world, rather than actually seeing the damage done.
It saddens me a little that most of the news articles to come out of this event are about profit, rather than protection; and making money from what I view to be in itself at least a pretty worthless object. What I'd like to see is the precautions that are, or will be put in place, or the plan of action incase a more substantial meteorite hits us again.
Try and squeeze all the profit you can out of this, but if we collide with something bigger next time, your money won't even matter. I think one of the great things to come out of this event is the plans for ATLAS, in Hawaii - the Asteroid Terrestrial-Impact Last Alert System which will have eight telescopes detecting any incoming universe debris and will alert humanity 1-3 weeks prior to its contact, giving us enough time to create a contingency plan. Modern technology is certainly a blessing, but I don't even want to think about how much that will all cost, but can you really put a price on safety?
Another thing that gets me thinking when news like this makes headlines is just how little we know about our universe, let alone the plethora of universes out there. Scientists apparently aren't even sure whether the thing that plummeted to earth last week was even a meteorite. There's now an investigation into whether it could have been a comet. It seems we're all too wrapped up in our little bubble on Earth rather than really trying to comprehend our own back yard. We're residents in a quaint terraced house called Earth, and the city of the Milky Way is apparently a death trap, so we rarely leave the house.
There's nothing quite like the mystery of the universe. I'm all for progress in scientific discovery. I think missions that attempt to discover more about the universe in which we live is important, but I think we often view this mission as a programme of expansion; when perhaps we should combine these aspirations with an attitude of awe of the greater universe around us and we should be more cautious of the undertakings we enter into. Overconfidence has never been a trait widely admired and those found guilty are nearly always made to look a fool of eventually.
What brings this shocking event even closer to home is the news that the meteorite could have hit Britain if it had entered the Earth's atmosphere at a different time of day. I'm not saying it was lucky that it hit Russia - it would have saddened me that people were hurt regardless of where the meteorite had struck; but I think that when news doesn't directly affect us, we becomes anaesthetised to its effects and repercussions around the world. Had the meteorite struck Britain, I'm sure there'd be a lot more talk about it. I've barely heard a whisper uttered as yet, at least amongst friends and family, and I find that a shame that we only consider news to be important, or worth talking about if it affects us directly.
All that said, life seems to go on no matter what the universe throws at us, and no doubt for the short time we occupy Earth it won't be the last phenomenon with outer space that we encounter.
"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes." - Marcel Proust
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