Sure, a rock shaped like a skull buzzes Earth on Halloween and everyone’s delighted by the cute nickname. Nobody asks the obvious question: how far away was it, and how much did we pay to track it? Radar images look spooky, but the actual miss distance and the detection timeline are the parts that should keep us up at night. Where was the warning when the next one comes?
Sure, a rock shaped like a skull buzzes Earth on Halloween and everyone’s delighted by the cute nickname. Nobody asks the obvious question: how far away was it, and how much did we pay to track it? Radar images look spooky, but the actual miss distance and the detection timeline are the parts that should keep us up at night. Where was the warning when the next one comes?