This is in fact a review on another review of the film ‘Australia’, written by Mahjid Heath and published on ABC Australia Indigenous here: http://www.abc.net.au/indigenous/stories/s2443697.htm. As someone not from Australia but who was deeply interested in it as a child reading National Geographic magazines and also as an indigenous ‘brownie’ from another part of the world, and who has similar experiences and is aware of problems and issues arising out of the settlement of white people to indigenous lands, I find that this critique has simply ‘over analyzed’ the film. It is the unhappy state of mind that intellectuals sometimes suffer when they read far too much into a simple and straightforward affair than even exists within the actual context.

Other stories of the ‘Stolen Generations’ will follow and in no practical way, can those be contained in one film; it is the introduction to them that is meaningful and will be remembered. It is mysterious why the author is upset at the ‘black-faced’ make-up of Ursula, except only to say that it was over-done, there can be no embarrassment at the fact of ‘blackness’. How can this be offensive at all? The author ceases to make any sense at all. Is the author seeing too much meaning where there none of the sort? Despite the film’s impracticality in certain areas and the usual over-done Hollywood must-have-romance, this film will certainly remain in memory for a long time to come. This story - the story line of ‘Australia’, cannot contain all stories, but its plot has actually succeeded in hinting at other stories – there should have been no more – that is for others to tell hereafter. i. e., one story that binds many others is that of the connection between mankind of all sexes and races, earth and the elements and the methods with which each tribe or people has survived and carved its way - in the landscape, in history, and in and out of our hearts.

Australia has succeeded in doing this by far and has certainly introduced the burning interest to explore the other stories of this large continent and its people.To say that the film “conveniently covers up the exploitation of Indigenous Australians ..etc etc..” illustrates that the author is a true cynic and has little hope; making excuses for this behaviour with convenient displays of intimate knowledge of the history of Australia. Who is he really trying to impress?Kidman’s comedic performance was exquisitely nuanced and exceptional and it has far increased my overall respect and regard for her as one of the finest actresses. Brandon Walters, with the progression of the film, made you love him as a mother would a child and you believe that he will go ‘places’ thereafter. Ursula could improve her performance for acting on film – she seemed to have the exaggerations of one who performed in theatre.Our Rating: 3 Stars

Thought we should post/correct the true size that star-watchers will see of the Apophis asteroid 99942 (2004 MN) in 2029 as estimated by Space.com:

What to expect

The asteroid 2004 MN4 is expected to shine like a fast-moving star at magnitude 3.3, Chesley said. That would be easily visible under dark skies without the help of binoculars or telescopes.

On this astronomers’ magnitude scale, smaller numbers represent brighter objects. The brightest stars and planets have negative magnitudes. The dimmest stars visible under perfect sky conditions away from city lights are about magnitude 6.5. Urban residents may need to get out of town to see the rare event.

Chesley said the exact proximity of the object could cause its brightness to vary, but probably only by a few tenths of a magnitude.

The asteroid will pass through the constellation of Cancer. Observers with clear skies in Europe, Africa and parts of Asia will be able to see a star-like point of light.

“Whether you could see it from the center of London is another matter,” said Alan Harris of the Space Science Institute.

Harris notes that asteroid Vesta — 334 miles (538 kilometers) in diameter — periodically gets as bright as magnitude 5.3, which is visible to the naked eye under very dark sky conditions. “Curiously, Vesta attains this brightness at its opposition in July, 2029, only a few months after the April 2029 apparition of MN4,” Harris told SPACE.com.

With small telescopes and high-tech tracking software, the asteroid’s shape could be evident.

“It will be potentially resolvable with small telescopes, but they’ll have to be able to track pretty fast,” Chesley said.

The rock will cover about 42 degrees of sky per hour, slower than a satellite but noticeably quick in the small field of view of a telescope.

So, we correct our rather doomsday size of 10-12 times larger than the moon which we noted that Muriel of Muriel’s blog; has already posted.

see space.com article link

Related Links:

• 99942 Apophis back on track - June 11, 2008
• Asteroid’s Possible Collision in 2036 reduced to 0 - Jan 28th 2008
• The Huffington Post - “Arianna vs. Ben Stein Apocalypse Soon?” by Chip Collis - May 1, 2008

AFP Berlin from 15th April 2008

According to the Agence France-Press GMBH (AFP), a 13 year old schoolboy from the Humboldt Gymnasium in Potsdam, Germany, corrected NASA’s 99942 Apophis asteroid figures on paper. The boy apparently made his discovery as part of a regional science competition for which he submitted a project entitled: “Apophis — The Killer Asteroid.”

Nico Marquardt re-calculated the asteroid’s estimates on the chances of it colliding with Earth after recognizing that NASA (the boffins) had miscalculated. The Potsdamer Neuester Nachrichten (PNN), a newspaper of Berlin, reported that the school boy used telescopic findings from the Institute of Astrophysics in Potsdam (AIP) to calculate that there was a 1 in 450 chance that the Apophis asteroid will collide with Earth. Here is the PNN article ‘Apophis im Anflug’.

Nico Marquardt caused a sensation - in Berlin and Germany - he received regional award of “Young Scientists” and also won the competition in the field of physics.

In his calculations, the schoolboy took into consideration the risk of Apophis running into one or more of the 40,000 satellites orbiting Earth during its path close to the planet on April 13 2029.

Earth satellites are known to travel at 3.07 kilometres a second (1.9 miles), at up to 35,880 kilometres above earth — and the Apophis asteroid is expected to pass very close to earth in 2029 at a distance of 32,500 kilometres.

Niko estimated that if the asteroid were to strike a satellite on April 13 2029, this will change its trajectory making it hit earth on its next orbit in 2036 - also on April 13 of that year.

NASA estimated the chances of an impact in 2036 at 1 in 45,000 but is reported to have told its sister organisation, the European Space Agency (ESA), that Marquardt had got it right.

Both NASA and Niko Marquardt were reported to have agreed that if the asteroid does collide with earth, it will create a ball of iron and iridium 320 metres (1049 feet) wide and weighing 200 billion tonnes, which will crash into the Atlantic Ocean.

The estimated shockwaves from this type of asteroid is expected to create huge tsunami waves, destroying both coastlines and inland areas, whilst creating a thick cloud of dust that would darken the skies indefinitely.

Here are some more details on 99942 Apophis and what the world can expect to see in the skies above us:

1. Asteroid Size: 270 meters to 350 meters wide
2. Asteroid Weight: 200 billion tonnes
3. Asteroid Speed: 50,000 KM per hour
4. What you will see: in its fly-by - heated up and glowing by atmospheric particles of soil and light, Apophis’ size will appear to be approximately ten to twelve times larger than the moon.
5. Expected fly-by distance from earth in 2029: 32,500 KM
6. Expected Energy Release if impact occurs in 2036: 65,000 Hiroshima bombs
7. Expected trajectory of impact in 2036 if Apophis hits a satellite in 2029: Atlantic Ocean
8. Expected trajectory of impact if Apophis does not hit a satellite in 2029 and if it impacts in 2036: as earlier reported in our previous article here.

According to the PNN report, Nico Marquardt believes that Friday, 13 April 2029 by 22:45 Central European Time would be perhaps the “most exciting moment in human history”.

This ’space potato’ as it is known in German, composed of iron and iridium, will pass within 32 500 kilometres of the Earth and would appear ten to twelve times larger than the moon. Nico Marquardt wants to study astrophysics and to eventually work for NASA.

According to persons commenting on the PNN report, one suggested to Nico that he need not work for NASA but should work for Germany, and one commentator reminded all on the forum that one need not worry about 99942 Apophis, if the experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) being built at CERN in Geneva Switzerland to be conducted later this year go awry.

‘Little black holes’ are expected to be produced as a result of experiments at CERN and there are people out there who do not trust the scientists belief that, as per Hawkin’s theory, these little black holes will snuff themselves out naturally. The commentator believed that if the Hawkin’s theory did not kick in and the little black holes do not disappear but grow in size, then there’s no need to worry about future asteroids, because ‘we’d be all dead anyway’; snuffed out by a black hole that will devour earth.

As an aside to this report, NASA has now made an official statement, most links have been pulled from English websites; however, since NASA sees everything as having an impact only on the US (when tsunamis are referred to, reference is only made to US coastlines etc. etc. - so what of the rest of the world? They apparently don’t exist or were always invisible), can never admit to its mistakes and most likely has adopted an attitude that to let the people know the real facts is detrimental, this site does not yet place Nico Marquardt in disrepute. This is also made painfully evident by NASA’s statements that a deflection strategy will only be undertaken if the chances of an earth impact by 99942 Apophis is below 1 in 20. This makes it disturbingly obvious how expendable human beings and life on this planet are to these so-called scientists.

Some of the comments we’ve read so far are:

The Die Hard said… I haven’t checked the calculations myself, but I automatically distrust anything that comes out of NASA. There are no scientists or engineers left there, only politically-motivated “gimme my tax cut and high three” decrepit managers and their suck-up yes-boys. Most of us left in disgust after the Columbia debacle and their continuing cover up. After thirty years of pursuing The Dream, it wouldn’t break my heart if the whole agency was just disbanded. Anyone who claims that they “could do so much better outside of government” is welcome to go try. Remember how the various NASA centers were so busy with political infighting that they forgot to convert units on the crashed Mars probe? Don’t tell me they don’t screw up. You think they’d ADMIT to a mistake like misplacing a decimal point?

And that, dear readers, is why it is so damned important to stop electing the George Bushes of the world to positions of anything approaching power. And why it’s so damned important to keep our science classes free of Creationism and Intelligent Design and any other philosophies requiring a willing suspension of disbelief in favor of My Invisible Friend, be He Jehovah or the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Because once you subjugate science to religion, you’ll end up fighting for the survival of the species with a National Day of Prayer, asking Him to deflect the asteroid with His Noodly Appendage.

Or do you think that it’s more than just a coincidence that both NASA and Nico calculate that Apophis will arrive on EASTER SUNDAY in 2036?

Nico’s science fair project, entitled “Apophis - the Killer Asteroid,” was completed using telescopic data from the Institute of Astrophysics in Potsdam. It’s doubtful that the German competition committee would have accepted a project titled “How the Unicorn was Naturally Selected Off of Noah’s Ark,” but some school districts in Florida and Kansas may. Marquardt’s correction of NASA’s data is based on the possibility of Apophis colliding with man-made satellites during a VERY close pass, 18,000 miles or so, on an unlucky Friday the 13th of April, 2029.

Another coincidence? Ben Stein would have you believe that it was design.

Things may not be as dire as Nico is predicting. NASA’s figures appear to have already discounted the satellites, as this report indicates that the asteroid’s course actually takes it INSIDE the belt of geo-stationary satellites. That means that it will take not 9, but 16 straight coin-flips coming up heads for this one to smack us.

NASA’s statement on the Probability of Impact with a Satellite:

NASA (http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/apophis) - 2008-Apr-16: In response to inquiries, accidental impact with an artifical satellite in 2029 is vanishingly unlikely. As mentioned above, (1) Apophis does not pass near the zones where most satellites are located and (2) man-made satellites and Apophis both have small cross-sectional areas. Even if a high-velocity impact occurred, at most a large satellite could change Apophis’ position 7 years later (in 2036) by only 100’s of km. This is less than 1/10th the size of the smaller issues considered in the study, very much in the noise of the calculations, and can have no meaningful effect on Earth impact probability estimation (which already incorporates more than 30 million km of uncertainty). At such a late date, impact with an artificial satellite would be like a bug on the windshield of Apophis. Deflection efforts are dependent on being early enough to leverage the dynamics of the 2029 encounter. Events during the encounter lack such leverage.

Uh …. let’s give a Jon Stewart here:

Uhhh. *knitted brows of disbelief together with wry amazed smile* - did NASA actually realise what they were saying when they said that an “impact with an artificial satellite would be like a bug on the windshield of Apophis.”????? C’Mon give us a break! Are they saying that the thing - this asteroid is about the size of our damn f%%#@*! earth??? Thanks NASA! Thanks for confirming that the darned thing would appear 12x times larger than the moon in 2029 - Not only have you unwittingly made Apophis look BIG, you’ve actually exaggerated its known size and unwittingly again, put fear in all of us! God help us all! Can we believe NASA??! Really??

You know what really bothers me? The fact that by 2036, maybe even by 2029, NASA and all their cronies will be up there in a space rocket watching the rest of us fry. Too bad for all those who aren’t billionaires by then!

Related Links:

• 99942 Apophis back on track - June 11, 2008
• Asteroid’s Possible Collision in 2036 reduced to 0 - Jan 28th 2008
• Der Tagesspiegel Welt - Nico und der Weltuntergang - April 12,2008
• The Economic Times (of India) - NASA Scientists outsmarted by 13-year old schoolboy - April 17,2008
• The Huffington Post - “Arianna vs. Ben Stein Apocalypse Soon?” by Chip Collis - May 1, 2008

Latest news on the ‘99942 Apophis’ Asteroid that was predicted to be on a near collision or ’swipe’ course with earth is back on track. The 99942 Apophis’s asteroid’s threat has not disappeared but seems to have newly emerged in the most recent NASA reports in this year - even a competition was held to design an unmanned space probe to ’shadow’ 99942 Apophis in order to figure out just what Apophis might do or is ‘thinking’ to do.

99942 Apophis, having been relegated to a 0 in 10 on the Torino scale threat with a 1 in 45,000 chance of impact on earth, is still held to be the same:

On April 16, 2008, NASA News Release 08-103 reaffirmed that its estimation of a 1 in 45,000 chance of impact in 2036 remains valid.

Note that no mention was made on whether or not the Torino scale was increased or remains the same as well.

As part of an effort to develop viable deflection strategies, the B612 Foundation made estimates of Apophis path if a 2036 Earth impact were to occur.

The impact result is a narrow corridor called the ‘path of risk’ which would be a few miles wide. Countries estimated to be in the direct path:

1. southern Russia,
2. across the north Pacific Ocean (relatively close to the coastlines of the California and Mexico), then
3. right between Nicaragua and Costa Rica,
4. crossing northern Colombia and
5. Venezuela and over the Caribbean islands of Trinidad and Tobago,
6. over the Atlantic Ocean to the west coast of Africa.

See 99942’s Apophis’ path of risk here (click the image to enlarge):

Using a computer simulation tool called NEOSim, it was estimated that the hypothetical impact of Apophis in the countries that are listed above and which are in the path of risk, would have more than 10 million casualties.

An impact several thousand miles off the West Coast of the US would also produce a devastating tsunami.

So, we ask ourselves, what is earth doing about this - especially since we all pay taxes to our governments who are supposed to protect us?

Earlier this year in 2008, the Planetary Society organized a $50,000 competition to design an unmanned space probe that would ’shadow’ Apophis for almost a year, taking measurements that would “determine whether it will impact Earth, thus helping governments decide whether to mount a deflection mission to alter its orbit.” The society received 37 entries from 20 countries on 6 continents.

The commercial competition was won by a design called ‘Foresight’ created by SpaceWorks Engineering. The craft is planned to be launched in 4 years from now - namely, in 2012.

The winning design, Foresight, proposes a simple orbiter with only two instruments and a radio beacon at a cost of $137.2 million to keep mission costs on the low side. The spacecraft would launch aboard a Minotaur IV, leaving Earth sometime between 2012 and 2014. It would take Foresight five to ten months to arrive at 99942 Apophis. Foresight would then rendezvous with, observe, and track Apophis and would orbit the asteroid to gather data with a multi-spectral imager for a period of one month.

Foresight would then leave orbit and fly in formation with Apophis around the Sun at a range of two kilometers (1.2 miles). The spacecraft would use laser ranging to the asteroid and radio tracking from Earth for ten months to accurately determine the asteroid’s orbit and how it might change.

In addition to the unmanned Planetary Society project, NASA’s Project Constellation is researching a manned Orion Asteroid Mission, with 99942 Apophis being one of the potential destinations of the mission. The mission would use the Orion spacecraft to land astronauts on the surface of the asteroid that is intended to provide valuable testing for a later manned Orion Mars Mission.

Well, inhabitants of the above listed countries, may now be asking “What the f*&^)$?’ else???!!” Apart from assuring that your governments are thinking of you in less than 28 years (exactly 27 years, 10 months, 2 days, 11 hours, 20 minutes and some split seconds) from now, it might be nice to consider taking a trip away from the area and making plans in case you cannot ever return, here are some other initiatives:

1. NASA’s conclusions are that both a deflection mission (of the type required for Apophis) and a scientific/transponder mission to Apophis can be performed sequentially, if required, between the key radar apparition in 2013 and the Earth close approach in 2029 (oh! you didn’t know that Apophis is coming close to earth in 2029??). In 2021 when a deflection decision would have to be made, the size of the 2029 error ellipse (even without a transponder mission) will yield a maximum impact probability of about 20% (one chance in five), sufficient to justify launching a deflection mission if required.

Did we hear anyone complain about the impact probability being less than 20%? I had no idea we human beings were so expendable. I suppose NASA might be thinking that the world could do without a few million people by 2037!

In 2029, 99942 will actually pass much closer to earth than it was first predicted; however, an impact is ruled out. This close approach to earth in 2029 will substantially alter the asteroid’s orbit, and more data would be needed to ascertain its new orbit and new impact risk the 2nd time it comes around in 2036/2037.

In July 2005, former Apollo astronaut Rusty Schweickart, as chairman of the B612 Foundation, formally asked NASA to investigate the possibility that the asteroid’s post-2029 orbit could be in orbital resonance with Earth, which would increase the probability of future impacts. Schweickart asked for an investigation of the necessity of placing a transponder on the asteroid for more accurate tracking of how its orbit is affected by the Yarkovsky effect.

The Yarkovsky effect is a force acting on a rotating body in space caused by the anisotropic emission of thermal photons, which carry momentum. It is usually considered in relation to meteoroids or small asteroids (about 10 cm to 10 km in diameter), as its influence is most significant for these bodies.

Previous related posts:

Asteroid’s Possible Collision in 2036 reduced to 0 (Jan 28th 2008)

Muriel’s Blog: Doomsday comments

Philip Van Praag, an audio expert who co-wrote a new book titled ‘An Open and Shut Case‘ with a fellow investigator, a former American Academy of Forensic Scientists (AAFS) President Robert Joling about the Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination, are convinced more than one gunman was involved in the shooting of Kennedy. Right after winning the California primary, Senator Robert F. Kennedy was shot early on the morning of June 5, 1968. He died less than 26 hours later, at age 42.

Scientists Van Praag and Joling have extensively analyzed the only known audio tape recording, known as the Pruszynski recording, of the shooting of Senator Robert F. Kennedy, on the fateful day - exactly 40 years ago as of yesterday.

Their findings concluded that no less than fourteen shots were fired in the Ambassador Hotel Los Angeles kitchen pantry, where Senator Kennedy and five others were wounded. Sirhan Sirhan’s .22-caliber revolver had a capacity for only eight bullets. In addition, other findings of the scientists also point to a second gunman firing at Kennedy.

Sirhan Sirhan was convicted of firing his gun from a few feet in front of Kennedy; however, the coroner reported that the fatal shot was fired less than 1 inch from behind Kennedy’s right ear and that of the four shots fired at Kennedy, all came from the rear. This fact was not raised at Sirhan’s trial because his defense was based on the theory that he suffered from “diminished capacity” rather than on any challenge of prosecutors’ evidence.

The inconsistencies in the case have bred numerous conspiracy theories, including the involvement of the CIA and the idea that Sirhan - who claims not to remember the shooting and pleaded insanity at his trial - was a “Manchurian Candidate” assassin who was hypnotically programmed to kill the senator.

The famed audio tape was played live following the authors’ New Haven presentation, on Tuesday, March 25th 2008 at a one and a half hour presentation at which the media were invited for a press conference after the presentation. A presentation was also held on February 21st 2008 which was reported by BBC’s Forensic Sciences division.

Sirhan Sirhan was convicted of RFK’s murder 40 years ago, but skeptics such as Van Praag and Joling are convinced that there was more than one gunman. Sirhan Sirhan is living out the rest of his days in the California state prison at Corcoran. Now 64, he has never fully explained what happened that night other than to say he can’t remember it.

Though Sirhan Sirhan was convicted of acting out the crime alone - questions still remain about RFK’s assassination. Though Los Angeles police found his diary, in which he had written, “RFK must die.”, investigators had concluded he was angry about Kennedy’s support for Israel and had tied the assassination date to the one-year anniversary of the Six-Day War.

Last month Van Praag and Joling submitted their Pruszynski recording findings before the AAFS in Washington D.C. - the AAFS is due to release the paper later in this year. For more info:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/feb/22/kennedy.assassination

This You Tube link is the Discovery Channel’s documentary on Joling and Van Praag’s findings:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=TaF6pW45d0o

Cracked.com, America’s online humor and video site posted a recent article about 7 conspiracies ‘that actually happened’. The list is very informative, is historical and encompasses the following:

1. Fascist dictatorship for the USA - The business plot by wealthy American businessmen to make the USA a dictatorship - these businessmen included the heads of Chase Bank, GM, Goodyear, Standard Oil, the DuPont family and Senator Prescott Bush. Many of the persons who had allegedly backed the Business Plot also maintained financial ties with Nazi Germany up through America’s entry into World War II; one can find articles at bbc.co.uk online proving the recent findings on the Bush family’s involvement with Nazi Germany. It was a good thing that this plot was failed.
2. Operation Valkyrie - The July 20th 1944 plot to take out Hitler which failed.
3. Operation Ajax - an overthrow of the democratically elected leader of Iran by the USA sparked by England when Iran nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company in which previously Iran was more or less shafted.
4. The Gunpowder Plot - the failed plot to blow up the British House of Parliament because a group of Catholics were fed-up with King James I Protestant rule.
5. The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment - the United States government was going to monitor the effects of syphilis and perform experiments on those who had a developed form of the disease. The experiments were exclusively performed without consent, and on the very poor, mostly illiterate black males who were not told that they had syphilis and were denied proper treatment for their disease as this would have skewed the results. Additionally, the government promised free burials to those who died.
6. Operation Snow White - During the 1970s, the Church of Scientology decided that their religion about magic space aliens in a volcano wasn’t getting the same respect as the religion about the magic bearded man whose dad made us all out of mud 6,000 years ago. The Church of Scientology the decided to destroy every single document that made their religion look bad, presumably including a trip into the future to destroy every copy of Battlefield Earth.
7. Project MKULTRA - Project MKULTRA was a series of CIA experiments, started on April 13, 1953, in which the CIA tried to figure out how to control your mind. Over a hundred sub-projects were authorized under the MKULTRA heading, though the documents on many of those have been destroyed.

Check out the details here; and whilst you’re at it, you might as well read their list of the ‘5 creepiest urban legends that happen to be true’.

GSiteCrawler is a Google (and Yahoo!) Sitemap Generator for Windows. Google Sitemaps allows the webmaster to help Google index their pages optimally and the GSiteCrawler will help you generate the best Google Sitemap file for your website. The GSiteCrawler uses different ways to find all the pages in your website and can generate all sorts of files, statistics and more. The sitemaps file format has lately been also adapted by Yahoo! - even MSN/Live.com is pledging it’s support.

The GSiteCrawler is available for free and runs under Windows - all you need is an internet connection and the desire to make the most out of your website! The site is available in both English and German.

Found a great site today that will check your website statistics (stats) - MasterStats.com:

MasterStats.com offers a new stats service that will focus on the more “important” needs of webmasters and display them in a friendly attractive html-based interface. MasterStats brings back the simplicity of the original statistics programs (like MK Stats), and takes advantage of today’s technology to bring an easy and powerful stat service.

MasterStats’s system displays a piece of html code that must be inserted into your web pages; every time your page is viewed, their code on your page interacts with their system to track the details of each visit. Most of the information they collect is the same information that similar services track, they just do it a little bit differently.

By loggin-in from the MasterStats.com homepage, you can browse stats for every site that you have added, in a “all sites” summary, or “per site” summary. New stats are updated every 30 minutes, and up to 6 months of stat history can be accessed. For what seems to be a very simple feature, the infrastucture behind the service is truly sophisticated. But in summary, that’s how the counter functions.

The asteroid’s name is 99942 Apophis - Apophis being the name for an evil spirit of destruction in Egyptian myth and an appropriate name for this Near Earth Object (NEO) discovered in 2004 by Roy A. Tucker, David J. Tholen, and Fabrizio Bernardi of the NASA-funded University of Hawaii Asteroid Survey from Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona. The asteroid was initially named ‘2004 MN4′. Scientists at the time insisted that there was very little time left to prepare a defense strategy for a possible collision. Technology to deflect the asteroid, they said, would take decades to design, test and build.

NASA had estimated that an impact from Apophis, which has an outside chance of hitting the Earth in 2036, would have released more than 100,000 times the energy released in the nuclear blast over Hiroshima. Thousands of square kilometers would be directly affected by the blast but the whole of the Earth would see the effects of the dust released into the atmosphere.

As Monica Grady, an expert in meteorites at the Open University, said:

“It’s a question of when, not if, a near Earth object collides with Earth. Many of the smaller objects break up when they reach the Earth’s atmosphere and have no impact. However, a NEO larger than 1km [wide] will collide with Earth every few hundred thousand years and a NEO larger than 6km, which could cause mass extinction, will collide with Earth every hundred million years. We are overdue for a big one.”

Apophis had been intermittently tracked since its discovery in June 2004 but in December 2005, it began to cause serious concern As of this time, the chances of Apophis hitting Earth has been reduced to 1 in 12.3 million.

In projecting the likely orbit of the Apophis into the future, astronomers calculated that the odds of it hitting the Earth in 2029 were alarming and the odds got higher as more observations were received. At the peak of the scientists’ concern, Apophis asteroid was placed at 4 out of 10 on the Torino scale - a measure of the threat posed by an NEO where 10 is a certain collision which could cause a global catastrophe. This was the highest of any asteroid in recorded history and it had a 1 in 37 chance of hitting the Earth. The threat of a collision in 2029 was eventually ruled out at the end of 2004 and the collision date extended to approximately 2036. The Torino scale threat has also been lowered to 0 out of 10.

Alan Fitzsimmons, an astronomer from Queen’s University Belfast, has stated that the asteroid should pass close to earth on April 13th 2029 and when it does:

the Earth will deflect it and change its orbit. There’s a small possibility that if it passes through a particular point in space, the so-called keyhole, … the Earth’s gravity will change things so that when it comes back around again in 2036, it will collide with us.”

The chance of Apophis passing through the keyhole, a 600-metre patch of space, was 1 in 5,500 based on information in 2005 but as of the most recent information, it is now 1 in 45,000.

The Advanced Concepts Team at the European Space Agency have led the effort in designing a range of satellites and rockets to nudge asteroids on a collision course to Earth into a different orbit. Even nuclear powered spacecraft are being considered but the negative aspect of nuclear powered is that it has not yet been put to the test as is the case with solar electric propulsion, for which there are already several spacecraft that do use the latter technology.

The European Space Agency (ESA) favoured method is also one of the easiest methods - to throw a spacecraft at an asteroid to change its direction. ESA plans to test the idea with its Don Quixote mission, where two satellites will be sent to an asteroid. One of the spacecraft, Hidalgo, will collide with the asteroid at high speed while the other, Sancho, will measure the change in the object’s orbit. Decisions on the actual design of these probes were to be made in 2006, with an expected launch to take place sometime between 2007 and 2017 launch expected some time in the next decade. Astronomers are not considering the use of explosives as an option due to the fact of potential spread of damage by the collision of many fragments.

In September 2005, scientists at Strathclyde and Glasgow universities began computer simulations to work out the feasibility of changing the directions of asteroids on a collision course for Earth.

Possible Effects of Impact

NASA initially estimated the energy that Apophis would have released if it struck Earth as the equivalent of 1480 megatons of TNT but later refined this to 880 megatons. The impacts which created the Barringer Crater of the Tunguska event are estimated to be in the 10-20 megaton range and the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa was the equivalent of roughly 200 megatons.

The exact effects of any impact of an asteroid varies according to the asteroid’s composition, and its the location and angle of impact. Any impact is aid to be extremely detrimental to an area of thousands of square kilometres, but information says that any impact would probably not cause long-lasting global effects, such as the initiation of an impact winter as many fear.

Scorn a popular role-playing or online game which sells in the millions and scorn the gamers who play it without reasonable proof and you’re up for a rage and revenge by this dedicated online community that speaks of total commitment and loyalty to their group - and that includes even the conservative gamers who openly show scorn for the critic. There are a few lessons learnt here and learnt very well.

A self-help writer, Cooper Lawrence and author of the book “The Cult of Perfection: Making Peace With Your Inner Overachiever”, openly criticized Mass Effect, one of the most critically praised games of 2007, on “The Live Desk With Martha MacCallum”, a Fox News program featuring a discussion of the apparent sexual content of the hit video game.

Even worse, the author admitted on the programme to not having played the game after having delivered intense criticism that the game contained frontal nudity and explicit depictions of sexual activity. The assertions of virtual lasciviousness first appeared earlier this month amongst online bloggers who were incensed by short ‘YouTube’ clips which were taken from the 30- to 40-hour game. Cooper Lawrence appeared to mischaracterize the game when she stated:

“Here’s how they’re seeing women: They’re seeing them as these objects of desire, as these, you know, hot bodies. They don’t show women as being valued for anything other than their sexuality. And it’s a man in this game deciding how many women he wants to be with.”

Mass Effect is a science fiction game which includes a complicated romantic subplot that is no more inappropriate in its plot or graphic in its depiction than any television show played in the evenings to public viewers. Factually, and as a point of further embarrassment to Ms. Lawrence, Mass Effect allows users to play as either a man or a woman, and the few suggestions of intimate contact occur in the context of a detailed interpersonal story line.

An exacting revenge by online gamers - who turned their caustic disdain and anger on Cooper Lawrence - materialized. Ms. Lawrence’s most recent book user-rating on Amazon.com, “The Cult of Perfection”, was sent spiraling into near oblivion with one-star ratings given by these gamers who sought their retribution.

The book was tagged with the keyword “ignorant” and tied for 2nd place for keywords “garbage” and “hypocrisy,” and tied for 4th place with the words “hack” and “hypocrite”. Gamers went on to attack the book further on the Barnes & Noble Web site, symbolically fulfilling the game’s now seemingly most appropriate title ‘Mass Effect’. Amazon has stated that they would soon begin to remove reviews written by users who, obvious to them, did not read the book.

What is ironic and causes the most humorous aspect in this fable is that many of the reviewers admit that they have not read Ms. Lawrence’s book - as one Amazon user puts it:

“I know all about this book but have never fully read it. Why? Due to the overwhelming backlash, I have no choice but to agree with the 1 star ratings. The rumors are rampant that this book was poorly written and poorly researched. So without verifying the contents myself — I give it a 1 star. Good thing video games aren’t judged in this manner — whew!!!”

In all contrasts, the game Mass Effect, which sold more than 1.6 million copies since November 2007, is far more popular that the book “The Cult of Perfection”.

Since her interview on Fox Channel and the ‘mass’ ensuing controversy, Ms. Lawrence has said that she had watched someone play the game for about two and a half hours (after the fact) and further:

“I recognize that I misspoke, … I really regret saying that, and now that I’ve seen the game and seen the sex scenes it’s kind of a joke… Before the show I had asked somebody about what they had heard, and they had said it’s like pornography, … But it’s not like pornography. I’ve seen episodes of ‘Lost’ that are more sexually explicit.”

Coming on the heels of the controversy and seeking an apology of some sorts, Electronic Arts, the giant publisher that owns Mass Effect, has asked Fox News for a correction but Fox only offered that Electronic Arts be given a chance to appear on the channel. Electronic Arts has not yet decided whether to accept this offer. Chief executive of BioWare, the Electronic Arts studio that made Mass Effect, Ray Muzyka and who is a medical doctor, further stated:

“We’re hurt. We believe in video games as an art form, and on behalf of the 120 people who poured their blood and tears into this game over three years, we’re just really hurt that someone would misrepresent the game without even playing it. All we can hope for is that people who actually play our games will see the truth.”

Lesson #1 learnt: Prove it before you speak.

Lesson #2 learnt: Revenge is not fair.

Lesson #3 learnt: Ms. Lawrence’s ‘Making Peace with Her Overachiever’ is obviously still a ‘work in progress’ for the author.