Today, February 15, another asteroid – 2012 DA14 – such an unattractive name! – will graze the earth. It will come within 17,200 miles of the earth’s surface, in fact – closer than some of our own communications satellites.
How do we let these things happen?
Oh, that’s right, we have no say in the matter one way or the other.
These things have been whizzing past us for eons. Some of them hit the earth, and then it’s an “Oh my goodness!” moment. (Check this link for what happened in Siberia about a hundred years ago.) And, if they’re a bit larger, you get something like an extinction event, as happened 60 million years ago near the Yucatan.
Today, however, we can give 2012 DA14 a wave and a smile.
And now, ladies and gentlemen, from almost forty years ago: Devo’s brilliant song “Space Junk.” I posted this song back in 2011, but who cares? It’s still a classic.
She was walking all alone
Down the street in the alley
Her name was Sally
She never saw it hit
She was hit by space junk
In New York Miami Beach
Heavy metal fell in Cuba
Angola Saudi Arabia
On Christmas Eve said Norad
A Soviet Sputnik hit Africa
India Venezuela
Texas Kansas
It's falling fast in Peru too
It keeps coming
And now I'm mad about space junk
I'm all burned up about space junk
Oh walk and talk about space junk
It smashed my baby's head
And now my Sally's dead
