Let's hear some hubris
(Alternate title: Do not taunt happy space slushball)
... duly noted in this week's Nature, UCL researcher Andrew Coates, talking about the Deep Impact mission, commented:
To which I've little to add. I mean, it's durned impressive and all that they actually hit the thing (hey, this is rocket science), but since folks commenting on any potential effects on the orbit described the probe's encounter with Tempel as being 'like a bug hitting the windscreen of a bus', and since the actual practicality of shifting or destroying one of these things (a la a certain bad Hollywood movie) if it actually comes looking for us is seriously questionable right now, we might want to keep that in mind before we actually go taunting them.
(Looks up nervously)
... duly noted in this week's Nature, UCL researcher Andrew Coates, talking about the Deep Impact mission, commented:
We used to be afraid of comets. The dinosaurs should have been afraid of comets. Now it is the comets' turn to be afraid.
— Nature, Vol 436, July 2005, p. 10
...a quotation the august journal drily tagged as getting 'a little carried away'...To which I've little to add. I mean, it's durned impressive and all that they actually hit the thing (hey, this is rocket science), but since folks commenting on any potential effects on the orbit described the probe's encounter with Tempel as being 'like a bug hitting the windscreen of a bus', and since the actual practicality of shifting or destroying one of these things (a la a certain bad Hollywood movie) if it actually comes looking for us is seriously questionable right now, we might want to keep that in mind before we actually go taunting them.
(Looks up nervously)
posted by AJM at 10:43 a.m. (Permanent Link)
