Meteor Raining. 
Speaking Sunday 7 with Bob Zimmerman re the delayed Mars Lab rover (SUV on Mars) till 2011, and we will mention the recent star that fell to Earth in Alberta (see CBC video
screenshot). Science Magazine is now reporting a new laser technology in use, called LIDAR, that when airborne can locate meteor craters within the last 12,000 years. Before now, only such five craters from this period were known worldwide, because of erosion, flora cover and the fact that most fall in the seas. Now LIDAR, in the hands of a team from the University of Alberta at Edmonton, has located a 36-meter-wide crater in the woods of western Canada (above) that is all that remains of a one meter meteor that struck 1100 years ago. Further, the remains of the iron fragment rubble at the site suggest the meteor struck at 11 to 17 km/sec, much slower than usual contacts, indicating it came from an orbit in the asteroid belt. Our sturdy planet moves through the sun-orbiting space junk daily. The meteor that hit Alberta in November has not been found. All these tiny rubble piles are part of ongoing planet-building. Those rocks and the billions before are what created the rocky and wet planet we stand upon and that will continue to change in the bombardment of our Solar System. I see the craters as reminders that all human history -- approximately that last 7 million years -- is an interregnum. Some day, the falling star that struck Alberta will be ten or fifteen kilometers wide and this planet will change profoundly. Will homo sapiens survive the next such planet-killer that falls periodically? Yes. But not recognizably. No more fairy tale endings. Are we overdue for an unhappy chapter? Yes.
Your use of the word "interregnum" was intriguing. It sent me running for the dictionary. Did you mean it to imply a period (such as ours) during which a state has no ruler - only a temporary executive? Or did you use it to imply a period (considerably longer in duration – 200+ years, perhaps) of freedom from the usual authority (as when the parents go out to the theater, leaving the kids home alone) - a delicious rush – which, by all accounts, is now sadly coming to a close at least as far as this continent is concerned. Your last sentence implies the latter.
But I would not presume to be quite so pessimistic – even in this, the start of the holiday season that would regularly bury my first wife under a virtual avalanche of depression, growing worse every day until the first March melt would expose crocuses and green grass once again; when a reversal of her condition could thankfully be expected.
True, we can find not much good news at present. But, as you say, there is already tangible relief that Hillary Clinton - somebody at least marginally human (and not androids Clark or Kucinich) - has been chosen to head State. Besides, the human spirit can never become extinct. It can only suffer. But even in the deepest dungeons or uncertainly adrift in the vastest gulags, the allure of freedom can never be totally extinguished. It exists deep within every human heat, ever prepared to slip its chains and shackles to shine in the glorious expression of itself.
To quote Homer Simpson: "Oh well, we've had a good run!"
There is growing confidence in the prospect that a NEO's path can be changed and diverted if detected soon enough.
If we can direct a robot to fly through the rings of Saturn during its first pass, our guys and gals should be able to deal with a threatening mass on a course to impact Earth.
Like so many things nowadays, early detection is what is necessary.
Humanity (FKA "Mankind") has the technology and logistics to stop a "planet killer" asteroid. SDI missile tracking technology (Boeing's Successful Trans-Pacific SDI test this weekend), and Nuk-uh-lahr Ordnance.
"Concerned Scientists" in their hysterical phobia against anything Nuclear, propose outlandish solutions from city-sized Solar Sails to bean-bag solutions. None are tested and only muddy the waters and confuse the citizenry, guaranteeing apathy and ignorance. NASA and the Pentagon are fighting over future projects and budgets. The two agencies move in the same circles, but travel in different orbits.
Having elected a President who has promised to "...not weaponize space", We may have guaranteed our planet's destruction, including the Caribou on the North Slope of Alaska.
Comets Hale-Bopp should have been a wake-up call, at least for those of us who didn't drink the Kool-Aid and don the Nike sneakers and purple shrouds.
He means pause...We are the result of a pause in between the normal planet bombardment by NEOs. That's my guess. As far as using nuclear weapons on a 15km diameter rock, it better be a big one, and yet we'd still get hit with the smaller debris. Whatever the case it will be interesting.
I took Mr. Batchelor's use of "interregnum" to mean a sort of cosmic ceasefire lengthy enough to permit Darwin to work His magic and allow our mammalian ancestors enough peace and quiet to come down out of the trees and become human. For that to have happened during a period of heavy asteroid bombardment would have been problematic indeed.
Interestingly, some scientists suggest that various natural catastrophes, particularly the glacial periods of the Paleolithic, might have pushed various groups of early humans through a population bottleneck that forced them into cognitive modernity. Translation: The various Ice Ages killed off those hunter-gathers in the Northern Hemisphere who were too dumb to master the basics of such heavily g-loaded tasks as food storage and the manufacture of weapons and tools. After the thaw, the smart survivors inherited vast land areas--the ultimate "Great Leap Forward." The rest, as they say, is history.
As for the current danger presented by stray asteroids, while worrisome, it pales beside that presented by nuclear weapons. In the next thousand years or so humanity must either come to grips with its own genetically based aggressive nature or--and I think this is rather more probable--sidestep the question of planetary extinction by colonizing space.
As for the notion of using technology to nudge killer asteroids out of harm's way, this is something that needs to be pursued. But we would be wise to keep in mind that anything capable of moving space rocks away from us can also move space rocks toward us. Will we progress from gunpowder bombs to fusion bombs to asteroid bombs?
PS. Mr. Batchelor, I gather that you are working on a novel about the aftermath of such a cosmic collison. I very much look forward to it.
The most dangerous threats to humanity's continued existence are not in eliptical orbits and are not going to collide with Earth.
Darwin to work His magic, now that is an oxymoron of sorts...metaphysical darwinism. Thanks for the visual, it was quite funny.
I think all we need to do to divert an asteroid is to have all the illegal immigrants in Southern California simultanesouly point their leaf-blowers at it and blow it back into outer space.