A car-sized asteroid? Don’t beat yourself up if you missed it. | Opinion
An asteroid made headlines last Thursday for whizzing past Earth, nearly colliding with all of us here on the third planet from the sun.
The rogue space rock, known as 2023 BU and equally unimaginatively described by cognoscenti as “car-sized,” missed us by about 2,200 miles. This is among the closest near-misses ever recorded by those who record close near-misses.
Don’t beat yourself up too much if you missed this development, first spotted in the heavens the Saturday prior. You’re not alone: NASA itself was not first to track it when it appeared.
That honor went to Crimea-based amateur-astronomer Gennadiy Borisov, who clearly was not watching the NFL Divisional Round playoffs that Saturday.
This may concern some in the scientific community, but personally I wonder: Houston, do we really have a problem? We’re talking about a Lincoln Continental, after all. In space. I’ve lost sedans in my blind spot while tooling down I-77, even without Gordon Lightfoot playing.
Surely NASA isn’t charged with knowing every single time an intergalactic El Camino threatens to trade paint with Mother Earth. I for one would hate to have that detail:
NASA Scientist (at Monday water cooler): Morning, Ralph. Anything happen in space this weekend, anything at all?
Ralph (still looking up): Don’t think so, Sam. I did drop my keys once, though, so I guess it’s possible.
I say cut our nation’s preeminent stargazers some slack. First of all, reports indicate 2023 BU was coming from the direction of the sun, so the glare must have been something fierce.
Besides, the asteroid didn’t even hit us. If it had, a nick that small wouldn’t warrant a windshield note in our earthly parking lot. “Closest near-miss” sounds like a B-side Merle Haggard song, not an astronomical measurement of import.
And let’s be honest. There was nothing near about it. The wayward, wannabe-comet that has the lab coat set so verklempt missed Earth by well over 2,000 miles. That’s four times farther than the 500 miles folk musicians always insist is so great a distance from their home.
It’s roughly the mileage between my home in Charlotte and Sacramento.
When some driver recklessly tears across three lanes of Sacramento traffic to make an exit, I don’t get the yips while puttering down Queens Road West. So why on earth should anyone, well, on earth?
The distance, I realize, is close in comparison to the vastness of space. But it’s a pretty big ask for paying heed to a celestial non-event, at least for non-Trekkies.
Don’t get me wrong. I love a good tragedy-averted story, like the movie “Deep Impact,” where a giant comet on a collision course with Earth threatens mass extinction of all its inhabitants. But 2023 BU simply isn’t that, and smart money says “Deep Distraction” won’t put posteriors in the seats.
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe there is sufficient excitement here for Hollywood to green-light what we’re told nearly happened a great distance away. I just hope they don’t cast the actual asteroid in the leading role. Insufficient star power.
Mike Kerrigan is an attorney in Charlotte and a regular contributer to the Opinion pages.
