About 17,000 undetected asteroids that are large enough to be a concern to NASA may be lurking near Earth, according to a recent report. That doesn’t mean it’s time to panic or start declaring that the world will end on Sunday (or any other day this year) because some non-existent planet is rapidly approaching Earth, but it does illustrate how seriously federal agencies and international organizations take real threats like asteroids and space weather.

Space weather does more than just create pretty auroras. It can also have real consequences for our power grids, communication and navigation satellites.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is one of the agencies thattracks and predicts space weather, particularly at its Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado.

“It is very much like a normal weather forecast office,” said NOAA scientist Joe Kunches in a 2014 video released by the agency. “As conditions develop, we put out alerts, warnings and watches to our customers so they can take action.”

Major geomagnetic storms—the kind that would disrupt radio communication and satellite systems—occur an average of four times every 11 years, according to NOAA’s scale.

In 2014, President Barack Obama issued an executive order calling for better preparations for space weather emergencies. Some scientists have also suggested being a bit more proactive and creating a magnetic shield around the Earth; humanity may have already created a different kind of barrier by accident.

The case for tracking asteroids seems more obvious; when the right asteroid lands in the wrong place, the results can be catastrophic. (That said, NASA isn’t expectingany asteroid to hit Earth any time soon.)

US astronaut Russell L Schweickart speaks on a UN report concerning 'Asteroid Threats: A Call for Global Response', during a press conference at the Vienna International Centre, Vienna, on November 25, 2008.SAMUEL KUBANI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Tracking asteroids is a global project. NASA is one of the signatories to the International Asteroid Warning Network, an organization also sanctioned by the United Nations. The network's mission, according to its website, is "to establish a worldwide effort to detect, track, and physically characterize near-Earth objects to determine those that are potential impact threats to Earth." The IAWN ran a test of its member organizations’ abilities to work together on October 12, when an asteroid passed about 27,000 miles above Earth. That test went fine, NASA said.

If there were to be a dangerous asteroid headed toward Earth, and if we were able to spot it ahead of time, doing something about it would be nice. Unfortunately, that’s not possible yet. But NASA and other space agencies are still working on a few solutions to that problem—one of which is batting it out of the way.


(newsweek)

The world is now scheduled to end on November 19, according to people who believe in the Nibiru conspiracy theory, based around a planet NASA swears does not exist. If the Nibiru crowd is right—which, to be clear, they are probably not—the planet could slam into Earth and cause cataclysmic earthquakes or get close enough to mess up Earth’s orbit.

For the sake of argument, let’s say they’re right. How can one prepare for the end of the world—or at least, for a very bad earthquake or some other natural disaster?

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has you covered.

“FEMA partners with NASA to develop guidance on preparing for any potential impacts to Earth from natural space objects,” a FEMA spokesperson told Newsweek. “Upon notification from NASA of an impending impact threat to the United States, FEMA would take the lead to notify appropriate federal, state and local authorities and emergency response institutions.”

Ready.gov, the national disaster preparedness campaign, has a whole bunch of handy checklists and materials to help individuals who want to get ready for actual possible apocalypses.

Among the disasters covered on Ready.gov are bioterrorism, floods, hurricanes and “space weather,” which does not include asteroid strikes. (That said, FEMA’s spokesperson noted that potential concerns around an asteroid strike include damage to buildings, roads and the electrical grid, as well as flooding.)

Instead, “space weather” refers to the possibility that the sun might create a geomagnetic storm here on Earth that could knock out communications and cause blackouts. (This has actually happened; in 1989, six million people in Canada were without electricity for nearly half a day after a geomagnetic storm.)

And though Nibiru is not real, NASA and FEMA do have an emergency readiness plan if an asteroid were to hit Earth. According to NASA’s website, the two agencies as well as representatives from several other governmental and scientific agencies held a third Asteroid Impact Emergency Planning exercise in October 2016. During the exercise, the team discussed what kind of damage might be felt from impact that was otherwise unavoidable. (Such an impact, FEMA’s spokesperson noted, is considered a low-probability but high-consequence disaster.)

“The high degree of initial uncertainty coupled with the relatively long impact warning time made this scenario unique and especially challenging for emergency managers,” Leviticus A. Lewis, FEMA’s national response coordination branch chief, noted in the release announcing the exercise. “It’s quite different from preparing for an event with a much shorter timeline, such as a hurricane.”

Carlos Otero loads his car with water bottles outside of a Publix grocery store as residents in the area prepare ahead of Hurricane Irma, in St. Petersburg, Florida, on September 05.BRIAN BLANCO/GETTY IMAGES

Preparing for a hurricane, on an individual level, is likely a bit simpler than preparing for an asteroid impact. For those who do not want to create a personalized emergency kit for the disasters that are most likely to hit their region, there are even some all-purpose kits available to buy.

But if you do want to prepare for the end of the world, do it for the earthquakes and the hurricanes and the other disaster scenarios that are actually more likely to happen than a rogue planet hitting or otherwise messing with Earth. Because, at least, when it comes to Nibiru, that’s not happening.

“If it were up there, you could see it. All of us could see it,” NASA senior scientist David Morrison said in his 2011 video debunking Nibiru. “Please, get over it. Nibiru isn’t real.”

(newsweek)