Phil Plait: How to defend Earth from asteroids

http://www.ted.com What's six miles wide and can end civilization in an instant? An asteroid - and there are lots of them out there. With humor and great visuals, Phil Plait enthralls the TEDxBoulder audience with all the ways asteroids can kill, and what we must do to avoid them.

TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Featured speakers have included Al Gore on climate change, Philippe Starck on design, Jill Bolte Taylor on observing her own stroke, Nicholas Negroponte on One Laptop per Child, Jane Goodall on chimpanzees, Bill Gates on malaria and mosquitoes, Pattie Maes on the "Sixth Sense" wearable tech, and "Lost" producer JJ Abrams on the allure of mystery. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, development and the arts. Closed captions and translated subtitles in a variety of languages are now available on TED.com, at http://www.ted.com/translate.

Category:

Science & Technology

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• Phil Plait
• Astronomy
• Science
• Technology
• TEDxFeatured
• TED
• TEDTalks
• TEDxBoulder
• asteroid
• earth

[ABitOfTheUniverse]

When a hurricane crashes into the coast of America who gets blamed?

Meteorologists.

When an asteroid crashes off the coast of America who gets blamed?

Astronomers.

When the economy crashes in America who gets blamed?

Unemployed people who have degrees in fields like Meteorology and Astronomy who weren't greedy enough to become corporate bankers.

[asymmetrisch]

We could redirect it to hit planets that we don't like. Like Mercury. Fuck Mercury!

[dzntms144]

That guy is awesome! Liked the talk very much.

[JAGoGAMING]

No but often diamonds or other gems

[Comsofficer]

Yeah! Whats it ever done for us!

[Reconseal4050]

Is there any gold in these rocks?

[Vermin298]

well we wont have our own problems to worry about if an asteroid like that one hits us...

[Vermin298]

i dont know what you're talking about and im pretty sure you dont either...

[Zeropointbug]

Phil Plait you are an numb skull childish science who has a wild imagination. The day will come when us Plasma Universe advocates like myself will LAUGH at you.

Anyone ever check out Mars on GoogleEarth? Northern hemisphere is electrically excavated 5+ miles, with PERFECT electrical scarring across the red planet. Amazing.

[SpazzyMcGee1337]

God tries to wipe out humanity with an asteroid. Humanity not only deflects the rock, it begins mining the thing.

I've got some advice for the greater forces that be, stay out of our way.

[AZipp161]

Yeah, we have our own planet to destroy. Why let an asteroid do it?

[unluckylion]

asteroids are not a problem. humans will kill each other or destroy the earth ecosystem before a asteroid will hit us = ) So better worry about our behavior than abut some stuff from space...