Saturday, December 29, 2012

Next Apocalypse, 2017: Strange Near Earth Object Returns

1991VG is a near Earth object that, at the time of its discovery, made several people question whether it was natural (rapid light curve, in an orbit that should quickly be disturbed or cause it to impact Earth).  It's about 12m at most in its largest dimension.  I remember people talking about this in 1991 (I was a high school senior) so I'm happy it will be coming back. 

It will be back in 2017 and at Propagandery they're assuming (for the purpose of promoting another fun apocalypse) that not only is it an alien probe, but that it's a Berserker replicator.  For one thing, I would be glad to see the world end and NOT with zombies so fans of that stupid genre shut up.  In '91 everyone was crying "Bracewell probe" but interestingly, this single most suspicious object showed no evidence of involvement in any long echo effect, a radio phenomenon which most speculatively has been attributed to back-talking alien probes (scroll to #5 in this list of possible causes of the phenomenon).  So as this thing approaches in 2017 I fully expect idiots around the world to be pointing radio telescopes, laser pointers and garage door openers at this thing to see if it transforms or something.

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