The Threats We Face

The Threats We Face

Four years ago on August 24th 2003, an important discovery was made by a group of researchers at MIT's Lincoln Laboratory. This discovery would make scientist raise the question about what the future may hold for our planet Earth. This was the discovery if a meteorite which was named QQ47 and even more important was the discovery that this Object was in a collision trajectory with Earth scheduled to impact some time in 2014. This grim discovery painted the first real threat of earth being completely by a meteorite.

Even though very little is known about QQ47 it has a very real chance of striking Earth. Although some scientist like Donald Yeomans of NASA points out this may threat may eventually go away once scientist learn more about this asteroid, Just like it happened with a similar threat back in 2002 with meteorite NT7.

Near Earth collision have the potential to completely wipe out humans from the Earth upon impact. Once this Near Earth Object as they are called, entered the earth surface there would be very little that the atmosphere would disintegrate only if it's a small NEO less than the size of 40m if its bigger it would through the entire planet into an Impact winter. It would take an object about the size of a garage to destroy an entire city. One that is bigger would completely annihilate the planet. The impact would immediately kill every living thing in a 500 mile range due to the shockwave that would result. This shockwave would also raise incredibly high waves that would travel several miles in inland causing more destruction. Earthquakes and volcanoes would more than likely become active all around the world. Also the mount of material that this impact would raise into the atmosphere would be capable of blocking the sun for month's even years. Water sources would be contaminated and other food sources would eventually disappear. This is one of the theories on the extinction of the dinosaurs and the Gulf of Mexico was believed to have been created by the same asteroid.

The second Threat we face as humans and extinction is one that we have helped to create bioterrorism. Bioterrorism has been of great concern in the last couple of years. With concerns bout biological agents that have been specially created with only one purpose in mind, to destroy people in mass quantities. The threat lies in the amazing killing power and the relative ease with that thy can be deployed. Today several nations which have such weapon live in fear of the enemy getting their hand on these weapons. The reason we fear these weapons is because these are the type of weapons of attacks in which we are the least ready to respond properly. The detonation of a device that carries a biological agent in the form of aerosol type clouds which can be designed to be odorless, tasteless, and even invisible make it even harder because they may go undetected to days if not even weeks. Some of these biological weapons could be Anthrax, Small Pox, Bird flu, or even Sarin Gas.

Some of these are designed specifically to attack the nervous system and effectively shutting down the body. This is the case of the chemical agent known a Sarin Gas. Once exposed in either liquid of vapor form it will over stimulate the body's chemical trigger for muscles and movement such as breathing until it overwhelms the nervous system and the cells stop responding completely. Although Sarin Gas is not found naturally on earth, other naturally accruing diseases can be manipulated to become more contagious and be capable of different from of spreading.