Western Canada got a celestial light show this past week with an exceptionally bright meteor.
I couldn’t help but think of the opening scene of the 1953 version of The War of the Worlds, though apparently no tripods or other flying craft have taken to decimating the Canadian countryside yet. Nonetheless, it is a wonderful and rare natural display of beauty, and a reminder (if I may get dark and sinister):
Things like this have wiped out entire phyla from Earth’s biological realm in the past, and will almost certainly do so again in the future. Of all natural disasters, it is not only the only one that could wipe out our species in one foul swoop, but is also the only one that could be preventable, provided that governments realized that it isn’t based on bad science fiction, and that more money needs to be pumped into sky searches for potential killer objects.
