Does our knowledge of the solar system give us a better chance of surviving such a catastrophe? How?
What other benefit is it to know the solar system better? How can the position of sun, moon, and planets help us to know our position on Earth? How does knowing the conditions on other planets help us to appreciate Earth? Could there be life on other bodies in our solar system? Why or why not?
this question cannot be answered simply, so, read Pale Blue Dot, by Carl Sagan. his visionary works are ahead of ahead of his time and still ahead of ours
Of course. Any knowledge of your environment makes you able to at least recognize the hazards. People thought it was possible for the Earth to get struck by asteroids, but until we actually saw the *amount* of energy released by a ‘small’ fragment hitting Jupiter in 1994, no one really understood the amount of devastation possible.
As for life on the other bodies in the solar system… it may be possible – we see life flourishing on Earth without the sun (the giant worms & bacteria that survive by the Black Smokers in the Atlantic), so it’s *possible*…. but is it likely? I would think not – but I’m open to being proven wrong.
Knowledge of the solar system is basically sheer curiosity. We really don’t have a good asteroid watching program set up. If we detected a small one due to hit earth people could be evacuated and supply centers could be set up, but thats about it. We don’t have the technology to move or destroy asteroids or comets. Nuclear weapons would be a waste of effort. And your prediction better be spot-on. If said asteroid missed, the legal liability would be staggering.
I don’t think more than one person out of a hundred million thinks “Venus is a hell planet, thank the gods I live on earth”. People don’t think that way. Its really cold today in Iowa, I’m just glad I’m not on Mars. Nope, saying that never entered my mind.
Sure there could be life on Mars, in the atmosphere of Jupiter or Saturn, or on one of their larger moons. If it existed the chances are that it would be very simple. But who knows? Personally I don’t much care. It would be very far away and would pose no threat.
Focussing on your catastrophe part of the question… I came up with this from the NASA site…it’s really talking about why they are going back to the Moon and then Mars…
“Returning to the most important reason for a new lunar program, dispersal of the human species, the most promising site for such dispersal is obviously Mars, now known to have an atmosphere and water. Mars itself is obviously a fascinating object for exploration. But it may even now be marginally habitable for astronaut visits, and in the very long view, might be “terraformed,” or engineered to have a more Earth-like atmosphere and climate. This was described in Kim Stanley Robinson’s trilogy, Red Mars and its successors Green and Blue Mars. A second Earth, so to speak, would greatly improve our chances of surviving cosmic catastrophes. ”
It was written 14 Jan 2008