Asteroids! The Doom We're Best At
Summary
Host Ben Bradford and astronomer Christina Thomas explore the history of asteroid impacts, from the dinosaur-killing Chicxulub event to the 2013 Chelyabinsk meteor. The episode details how these disasters spurred global planetary defense efforts, including NASA’s DART mission, which successfully altered an asteroid’s orbit. It highlights humanity’s growing ability to detect and deflect space threats, turning a cosmic fear into a solvable engineering challenge.
Topics discussed
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The 1994 impact of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 on Jupiter
The asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs
Defining asteroids, comets, and meteors
The 1908 Tunguska event and early sci-fi fears
How Jupiter's gravity influences near-Earth asteroids
NASA's efforts to track and categorize asteroid threats
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The 2013 Chelyabinsk meteor explosion
Categorizing asteroid risks: continent-enders vs city-killers
New space telescopes improving asteroid detection
Hollywood solutions vs. real asteroid physics
The DART mission: Kinetic impactor test
Results of the DART impact on Dimorphos
Future of planetary defense and global cooperation
Outro, credits, and support for the podcast
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