Will D-Day come for Singapore in 2029?
Is Singapore doomed if the asteroid Apophis hits Earth in 2029?
Nope, says renowned astrophysicist and and author Neil deGrasse Tyson, one of the key people responsible for the declassification of Pluto as one of the planets in our solar system.
The astrophysics community has established that the asteroid Apophis, which is about the size of a stadium, is on a collision course with Earth, but have calculated that it will narrowly miss us — although it will approach Earth closer than its existing communications satellites.
Even if the asteroid did hit Earth, however, it would likely hit the Pacific Ocean and cause a tsunami about five storeys’ high, but it is unlikely to cause the extinction of any species, he said on Thursday morning.
In Singapore on Thursday and Friday to promote a new National Geographic channel remake of Carl Sagan’s revolutionary “Cosmos” TV series, which he will be hosting, Tyson fielded questions regarding space, education and even wrestling. If the latter seems odd, it might be helpful to know that Tyson is an ex-wrestler who was captain of his team in high school, and wrestled his way through college at Harvard as well.
“Yes, it has a collision course with Earth and in 2029 it will just miss us,” he said. “I would like to believe that that would be a wake up call to nations of the world to think about how we might protect ourselves from any future collision with Apophis, or any other asteroid that might hit.”
“It’s not enough damage to make anybody extinct, plus we will know enough about its orbit to know where it will hit. And if we don’t deflect it, we will know well in advance where it will hit, so nobody has to die,” he continued. “So if it hit nearby Singapore, the energy of the impact hitting the Pacific Ocean is shared in every direction that the energy spreads. So you don’t get the entire brunt of the damage unless it hits Singapore.”
Watch his full answer to the D-day question here:
Dr Tyson also had some words for the recent removal of astronomy from Singapore’s school science curriculum, calling it “narrow-minded”.
Sharing how when he was in school, educators felt it was more important to learn about Earth than about astronomy, he said there were classes in earth science but their scope did not go beyond that.
“Now of course Earth is important, I won’t deny that,” he said. “But I do feel strongly that if you think of Earth only as a place where you live rather than as a planet among many, orbiting a star among many in a galaxy among many, you are deprived of a cosmic perspective that can completely shape your outlook and how you value life, other humans, nature… the future of species itself.”
“I think it’s a mistake to leave out a discussion of what the rest of the universe is, and then in the bigger picture, just think about what that looks like — you have people saying ‘here, study this little speck called Earth, and all the rest of this universe is not important.’ That’s very narrow in scope, especially if we go extinct because something comes out from (the rest of the Universe) to hit Earth,” he continued. “I want somebody looking up at some point."
Hear his thoughts about astronomy in education here:
Dr Tyson will be fronting “Cosmos: A Space-Time Odyssey”, a sequel series to Carl Sagan’s 1989 TV series “Cosmos: A Personal Voyage”. It will premiere on the National Geographic Channel on 15 March at 10pm.
