Environmental News

Don't_Look_Up_(1996_film)?

 

This one, Don't Look Up - Wikipedia

 

i think i recently read a book like that. i wish i could remember the name, but it wasn't the one that sued the movie for stealing their idea.
i can't find it, so i must be misremembering

 

"As an observer and operations engineer at the Catalina Sky Survey, a NASA-funded planetary defense program that utilizes the telescopes atop the Santa Catalina Mountains, he [David Rankin] spends hours looking for dangerous rocks that could cause catastrophic damage to Earth."

Yes, the Catalina Sky Survey has been the greatest producer in the search for Near-Earth Asteroids (NEAs), though a separate group named Pan-STARRS has also been a major producer over the past decade:



Though the new Vera C. Rubin Observatory might soon take the lead.

Total known NEAs have been growing exponentially for a long time, but the discovery rate of the really big ones, over 1 km size, has dropped very sharply, from a peak of 79 in year 2000, to just 2 each in 2024 and 2025, statistically suggesting that most have already been found. The rate for rocks in the range of 140-1000 m, also quite serious, still appears stable, suggesting lots more to be found. The major growth now is in finding the little ones, under 140 meters.







I just might get a chance to stop by the Mt. Lemmon observatory later this month. Original planned to ski there while in town for an unrelated event, but snow is seriously lacking, as in totally absent. So instead, make some Lemmonade . . .