8 thoughts on “More Chelyabinsk Thoughts”

  1. In reading his clarification on what the object is properly called, it becomes obvious that we should, if possible, ditch our inherited terminology. Meteor, meteorite, meteroid, bolide, asteroid, etc are mostly defining the same object by the way it happens to appear at a particular moment of impact or non-impact, founded in the complete lack of understanding we had when we came up with the terms. We would be better off using a few words to differentiate the objects (comet, iron asteroid, stony asteroid) and then use adjectives to describe the way it smacked into us: A glancing asteroid, an exploding stony asteroid, a ground-impacting iron asteroid, etc, pehaps with a nice logarithmic energy scale.

    1. Agreed. There’s also about a hundred terms in astronautics that are inherited Greek/Latin gobblegook. Translate that crap and ditch ’em. Personal favorite: ephemeris. Seriously, it’s just a list.

  3. Oh come on, this story (an asteroid nearly destroying a city) just isn’t important enough to stay in the public eye for more than a day or so. It’s not as if it’s a major story the bears constant coverage, such as a U.S. Senator looking awkward while taking a sip of water.

    /snark

  5. Isn’t this something just like the upcoming Niven/Pournelle “Anvil” novel? An impact is detected to happen some time in the future, and the time before it is all wasted on squabbling and dithering?

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