Comet Impact Page #3

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and with it hopefully some sense of closure

forthe families of the people...

who so tragically lost their lives in

this natural disaster.

So that was how it started.

The biggest N.E.O. Impact since Tunguska

and we'd missed it.

How could we have known that

The worst was yet to come.

- We did ourjob, Neil. - Did we?

Yes. Our remit is to find objects over

one kilometre in size.

Rockall was 200 metres and we weren't

even looking for it.

May be we should have been.

We don't have those sort of resources.

Nobody does and... you know that.

Look, I'll see you at the gate.

- Neil? Hey. - Hey.

Are you heading home?

Yeah, the projecs all wrapped up so...

they got you working again already huh?

Yeah, the Dublin route.

Is kinda quiet but thall change.

- You look beat. - Yeah.

- Do you wanna walk with me? - Yeah.

I'm just curious, what is your star sign?

Oh... I don't.

Oh okay, well what do we know?

You have a big sense of responsibility,

you take everything very personally,

and I would say that you are kinda cautious.

I would say thas about the stupidest thing

I've ever heard.

And I would say that you are a Scorpio.

Wow! I am impressed. So...

how about you?

Pisces.

Really? What are they like?

Oh we're warm-hearted, idealistic, sensitive...

Just the good traits huh?

Oh God no, we're lazy and scatty too, but that

tends to be balanced out by our ideal partners,

Cancer or... Scorpio.

This is me, so...

Oh... maybe I'll see you around?

Yeah, I hope so.

Hey who knows, maybe is in the stars?

Ground Control to Major Tom!

Are you receiving me spaceman?

I'm sorry I gotta do this, is really important.

I'll see you in the morning.

No, take a look. Orion is amazing tonight.

Betelgeuse, is as red as a berry.

Betelgeuse?

Is a star where Rockall came from.

Welcome to my world.

Since 8

it seemed every astronomer//on the planet was hun

all sightings found their way to my inbox.

No matter how trivial I had to log them,

calculate the trajectories and...

estimate potential impact dates.

Expert opinion was that it would not be happen

in our lifetime, but i had to be ensure that.

I've got something to show you.

- Hey boss. - Check this out.

'Science' has accepted it for

publication next month.

Oh and if you flip it overthas

a list of Universities...

who want us to, to deliver a key note lecture.

Josh I have a backlog of a hundred

unmapped N.E.O.'s here...

any one of which could be headed our way so I real

don't see how glad-handing universities

makes it to the top of our To Do list.

I've got Kimberly Marshall on hold.

Do you want me to put herthrough?

No, no, I'll take it in my office. Read it!

Is your work.

Unbelievable. Unbelievable.

A new sighting from Australia,

an N.E.O. Discovered by two astronomers

Gibden and Bell.

Our sentry programme calculated a rough

trajectory and impact date.

The date was chillingly familiar.

A second sighting, the same N.E.O.

And then a third.

Looks like is only gonna be famous from

the lectures out here.

Seriously the good news is is raised public

awareness of what we're doing...

- Hey Josh.

- What N.E.O. Does...

Look at the date of approach, August 8th 2009.

What?

We're getting different observations on the

same comet chain, 15 sightings so far,

so put it all into SENTRY to get a date closest to

approach, and what comes out? August 8th,

same date as the Irish impact.

Which means that one year on,

earth could be right back in

the firing line again.

This is comet Rockall's trajectory and...

this is what we've got so far on the new sightings

potential comet chain.

Now what I wanna do is get images from

the Lincoln telescope and...

reports from Russia, Australia...

Fine, yeah fine. Run with the precovery.

Try and keep it in perspective,

this is conjecture, not fact.

Hey, hey, hey... ah... ah... I, I, I know we were

gonna go to Vegas this weekend,

I... I gotta go to Catalina tonight.

Catalina?

Who's she?

The, the Catalina Sky Survey, Arizona.

Oh! Arizona! Wow.

Yeah, I'm really sorry, I just... l've really gotta

Is fine. Lets go.

Oh you don't wanna come, is like an

eight hundred mile round trip.

Well... I tell you what, I will drive and you can

pay the speeding fines.

So what happens at Catalina?

Precovery. Is a little technical.

I understood the Matrix Trilogy Neil,

indulge me.

- This is it? - Yeah.

This is where the guardians of the planet

watch over us?

Is there a problem?

No, no, no, no. I wasjust expecting

something a little,

you know, cooler, a little more 'X Men'.

This is it.

This is a photographic log of the

constellation of Orion.

- Is divided up into sections.

- I get it.

The computer stores images of the last

few weeks and months.

And we need to find evidence of the comet chain

before today,

before it really registered as a moving object.

- Precovery? - Precovery. Right...

The hard thing is telling the comet from

the stars.

Isjust one tiny speck of light amongst... thousan

but we've got one thing going for us...

stars don't move, N.E.O.'s do.

If you take pictures of exactly the same part

of the sky but weeks apart

then flip between them, find a starthas moved,

it ain't a star, is an N.E.O.

What time is it?

Just to the left of Betelgeuse off

the shoulder of Orion,

exactly the same place as Rockall came from.

Neil?

It was a long period comet probably ten to

the same as Haley's comet, probably broke up

around 1,000 years ago and formed a chain.

Now what hit Ireland was a fragment...

that got a little bit ahead probably due to

out-gassing,

and what we're looking at now is the rest of

the mass coming back around...

in the same orbit and intersecting with us again.

Thas a lot of probably's.

Probably.

And you're talking massive error margins.

Your mapping's rudimentary and there simply

isn't enough data yet.

Well I'm, I'm, I'm getting it, but Josh

we're looking at a Torino scale 6 here.

Oh, but you're using a scale thas only been used

for asteroids and relating it to comets.

They're completely different animals,

you know that.

Comets are way more unpredictable, outgassing

for a start. You can't talk about Torino 6.

We cannot afford to get this wrong Josh,

you know what happened last time.

Josh, I want you to take this threat seriously,

forward my report to Lampanelli and get

NASA behind us on this...

Neil, Neil you keep doing this to me. What report?

You've got some half-assed daubings on

my office wall, you're a mess man!

I'm not gonna be responsible for

giving a false alarm,

we will monitorthe situation...

...no, yes, yes we will monitor it but

what we will not do...

is go off half-cocked and...

Iook like a bunch of amateurs.

Is that all you care about these days Josh?

How you look.

You need to get some sleep, and take a shower

while you're at it.

In fact... take the rest of the day off.

Is not a suggestion.

An event like the Rockall comet happens perhaps,

oh, once every few thousand years.

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