- really, in the blog to date, when has your humble scribe ever intimated that he was fond of hanging around in loose groups getting drunk?
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| Ah yes |
Here an aside: proof that Britain invented the submarine:
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| I've no idea if this is true or not, just thought I'd stake a claim first |
If I can move on, the "gatecrasher" I am talking about weighs in at about a billion tons, is classified as a "Near Earth Object" and can seriously affect your health. Yours, and the rest of the planet's, too, if they ever fall from the skies to the ground and thus become Extremely Near Earth Object.
I am referring, of course, to the items introduced in yesterday's rather gloomy post about NEOs and the threat they pose.
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| Er - well he is a threat, I suppose |
Here an aside. I did mention that the biggest threat is posed by NEOs of 1 km diameter and upwards, which is a measure of how large these things are, except that, at that size they are rather small for astronomical objects, so they don't have sufficient mass to form a sphere. Take Churyumov-Gerasimenko as an example - it looked like a rubber duck. My mention of an object of 1 km diameter weighing 1 billion tons is based on a cube 1 km on a side, so the "billion" is an approximation, because one thing NEOs aren't is cubical.
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| Definitely not cubical |
Okay, now we've got that pedantic hairsplitting/devotion to accuracy out of the way, I can move onto - Refinement! Yes, this is what BOOJUM! has by the pint, thank you indeed. It's also a scientific process as regards tracking NEO's; the more observations you have of any particular NEO, the more accurately you can plot it's orbit, thus refining it.
This is one reason you see shrieking headlines in the yeller* press along the lines of "OMG WE'RE ALL GOING** TO DIE!!! LV-426 WILL HIT US IN 2013!!!" and a fuzzy photograph of what looks like bits of mashed potatoes thrown onto a slate.
What they mean, if not say - cold hard truth sells less - is that a SINGLE observation of LV-426 has plotted an impact with Earth in 2013.
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| Then again - |
"Hang on," I hear you question. "I think we'd have noticed that." Well yes OF COURSE you would, I am proving a point. Also, LV-426 is the planetoid in "Alien(s)".
After a couple more observations refine the orbit more accurately, we now have a near miss of 25,000 miles. With a dozen more observations the miss is now 285,000 miles, or well beyond the orbit of the Moon.
Guess what, the yeller press doesn't bother to print an amendment, they're too excited over finding an cow with three heads.
Intelligent Just Not Very Clever
Ah, another confession. You may recall your humble scribe gloasting about a Christmas present from Anna, in the shape of a set of cheeses. Art?
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| Et voila, les fromages |
It's a mystery! Tasty yet nameless.
Ah, Hello Coincidence Hydra
Allow me to unfasten it's teeth from my nethers. They must be very tasty hindquarters, them, given how often this beast fastens it's fangs in there.
There I was, busy scribbling in my notebook, creating a terrifying prospect of NEOs falling from the heavens upon Hom. Sap. and what's playing on the television? A rather lame Eddie Murphy picture entitled "Holy Man".
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| Just before this - |
Except AAAAGH! there's Jeff Goldblum, having suffered a puncture, talking about waiting for a meteor to fall on his head. Granted he didn't actually say "Near Earth Object" but he's a cultured chap, Jeff, and I'll bet he thought it.
Oh Goodness Me, Jim Varney!
This is nothing to do with Jim, I'm just exploiting a giant of the cinema for cheap personal gain.
See that post above, "Intelligent Just Not Very Clever"? Well it applies to yours truly, because I discovered that if you turn the cheeses upside down - I'll let Art explain this -
Ahem. The culprits identified. The third one is already gone so we shall never know. Except it had pickles in. And was jolly nice.
* A combination of "yellow" and "gutter"
** I draw the line at "OMG", you're not going to see "GONNA" here.
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