So Whats This 2012 Shit Anyway?

Originally Posted by Sassafrass

The alternatives are rather bleak.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Alterminded

We would know about now thanks to the Hubble Space Telescope or any outer space observatorial devices of such an object coming to hit the planet.

Do you have any idea what an impossibly small fraction of space we have under consistent observation? Do you have even the slightest idea? The most detailed and thorough image we have from Hubble is the Deep Field. The Hubble Deep Field is thought to represent roughly one thirteen-millionth of the sky. The observe the entire sky at that level of detail would, with current technology, take over a million years.

Space telescopes are an important and useful development, but omniscient they ain't.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

I'm only using it as an example of how silly it is to assume that we'll automatically see any significant objects just because oh gee we got some telescopes. I'm not falling into Nehmi's predictable repent-the-end-is-near attitudes, but saying the issue is like TOTALLY TAKEN CARE OF, NO WORRIES is a little naive. Also naive is the notion that a collision-course object would automatically be dealt with, should it be observed. We'll just send the Space Marines, yeah?

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Strictly speaking talking about "facts" as applied to anything Mayan is a little flibbertygibbet

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

No.

It's flibbertygibbet.

I was speaking idiomatically.