How to Stop A Killer Asteroid

Science Vs

Spotify Studios

Education, Science, Health & Fitness

4.4 • 12.4K Ratings

🗓️ 20 December 2019

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week — asteroids. Could a space rock really slam into us and destroy the world? And if we did spot one heading straight for us, is there anything we could do to stop it? We speak with asteroid researcher Dr. Alan Harris, astrophysicist Dr. Sergey Zamozdra, computational physicist Dr. Cathy Plesko, and physicist Dr. Andy Cheng. Check out the full transcript here: http://bit.ly/2MrW1vp Selected references: Overview of Chelyabinsk impact and risk from asteroids: http://bit.ly/2ECSRQQ How many asteroids are out there? http://bit.ly/34EhyHl DART mission overview: http://bit.ly/2SkBBZ1 Ways to stop asteroids: https://bit.ly/2sJqGgv Credits: This episode was produced by Wendy Zukerman along with Lexi Krupp with help from Michelle Dang, Meryl Horn and Rose Rimler. We’re edited by Caitlin Kenney. Fact checking by Michelle Harris. Mix and sound design by Peter Leonard. Music written by Peter Leonard, Bobby Lord and Emma Munger. Recording assistance from Verónica Zaragovia, Sofi LaLonde, Lawrence Lanahan, and Kevin Caners. Translation help from Andrew Urodov and Dmitriy Tuchin. Thanks to all the scientists we spoke to: Dr. Carrie Nugent, Dr. Mark Boslough, Dr. David Kring, Dr. Daniel Durda, Dr. Kelly Fast and the other Dr. Alan Harris. A big thanks to Carl Smith at The Australian Broadcasting Corporation for suggesting this topic - Carl did a podcast series on a bunch of the Apocalypse scenarios! You can find it at the podcast Science Friction and search for the Apocalypse series. And thanks to the Zukerman Family and Joseph Lavelle Wilson. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, I'm Wendy Zuckerman and you're listening to Science Vs from Gimli.
0:04.0	This is the show that pits facts against fireballs.
0:09.0	On today's show, Asteroids.
0:12.0	We're going to start our story on February 14, 2013.
0:21.0	The world's finest asteroid researchers were meeting for a conference in Vienna.
0:25.0	Alan Harris was catching up with some colleagues.
0:28.0	We had a nice evening in a restaurant in Vienna, talking shop as people do.
0:35.0	Some of that shop talk was about an asteroid that was expected to fly by Earth the next day.
0:40.0	It had been discovered a year before and scientists were tracking it closely.
0:44.0	They predicted it was going to just skim past us.
0:47.0	It was coming quite close to the Earth.
0:49.0	The scientific community was ready and waiting.
0:52.0	And so we were all geared up. We were expecting it.
0:55.0	The asteroid is called Duende.
0:57.0	It's a potato-shaped rock about 130 feet across.
1:00.0	And it was expected to be one of the closest encounters ever recorded between us and an asteroid of its size.
1:07.0	Scientists had press releases ready and interviews scheduled.
1:10.0	It was all rather exciting.
1:12.0	So with a big day ahead, Alan hit the hay.
1:16.0	Do you know, breast my teeth had a wash and then just fell asleep.
1:20.0	In Vienna, Alan slept peacefully.
1:24.0	But 2000 miles away in the city of Celia Binsk in Russia.
	...

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