Recently, an asteroid passed so close to earth that it just about missed the geostationary satellites we have in orbit, flying, as it did, closer to earth than the satellites.
For most scientists, astronomers, and those who watch the skies, this was just an exciting fairly standard event. Asteroids do what this asteroid did. We also believe that historically asteroids have bashed into the earth and created life extinction events. We know that smaller meteoroids have crashed into parts of Russia causing widespread devastation in the early 1900s. So, we have a fairly grounded fear of what might happen if and when a big one comes straight for us.
This is not a new fear. It’s one that has spawned blockbuster movies.
What isn’t widely shared with the public is how orbiting asteroids can be used to give ‘piggybacks’ to ‘spacecraft’ and anybody wishing to get from one planet to another. It is even possible to leap between solar systems. By plotting a course that includes hopping from one asteroid to another, a bit like hopping from one ski-lift system to another, travel is relatively easy. There are, after all, countless bodies orbiting through our solar system, with only a tiny few big enough to call planets.
When asteroid 2012 DA14 zoomed past us, were there any hitch-hikers? More importantly, did they get off DA14 and head for our little planet?
The answer appears to be ‘yes’.
Yes, there certainly were hitch-hikers enjoying a piggyback from DA14. And, yes, they took the opportunity to head for Earth.
Disengaging from such a piggyback isn’t easy. It requires a dismounting that is similar in burn to the energy one might need to jump from and out of the path of a ski-lift, except it uses a form of temporal energy we are not fully familiar with just yet.
To describe this is to explain that it would be like sending a huge magnet off in an opposing direction in order that it’s force can be used to lift the piggy-backer Part of the opposing direction includes, as a by-product, a shift in time. Backwards.
Back at our ski-lift example, the result is that you are pulled off the ski-lift by somebody who is travelling back in time and as they travel they glance a blow for micro-seconds of your time, which has enough energy to displace you and send your spinning.
When this happened to those who were piggybacking on the asteroid, a further by-product was that Russia saw what appeared to be a large meteor shower head their way, burning up as it went, causing scary sonic boom shock-waves to break windows and frighten people.
As explained by the theory of relativity, the throwing backwards meant that the meteor event proceeded the asteroid event as far as our perception of time was concerned, whilst, relative to the asteroid and the craft the piggy-backers were using, the meteor would have landed on Earth after they had detached from DA14.
Again, think of a person on a ski-lift propelling towards you and their helmet falls off as they fall off. The helmet will move forward and precede the arrival of person themselves. That explains what happened.
Anyway, the most important thing to know is that the craft that had hitch-hiked on the back on DA14 has now arrived in tact and discretely (despite the somewhat embarrassing entrance) landed on our planet.
Over the next few months we will start to see the results of any communication that takes place between the aliens and those who govern us. But will they explain to us, the public at large, that such contact has been established?
I suspect not.
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