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May 01, 2019
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A large asteroid will safely zoom between Earth and the Moon on Saturday, a once-in-a-decade event that will be used as a training exercise for planetary defense efforts, according to the European Space Agency.
The asteroid, named 2023 DZ2, is estimated to be 40 to 70 meters (130 to 230 feet) wide, roughly the size of the Parthenon, and big enough to wipe out a large city if it hit our planet.
At 19:49 GMT on Saturday it will come within a third of the distance from the Earth to the Moon, said Richard Moissl, the head of the ESA's planetary defense office.
Though that is "very close", there is nothing to worry about, he told AFP.
Small asteroids fly past every day, but one of this size coming so close to Earth only happens around once every 10 years, he added.
The asteroid will pass 175,000 kilometers (109,000 miles) from Earth at a speed of 28,000 kilometers per hour (17,400 miles per hour). The moon is roughly 385,000 kilometers away.
An observatory in La Palma, one of Spain's Canary Islands, first spotted the asteroid on February 27.
Last week, the UN-endorsed International Asteroid Warning Network decided it would take advantage of the close look, carrying out a "rapid characterization" of 2023 DZ2, Moissl said.
That means astronomers around the world will analyze the asteroid with a range of instruments such as spectrometers and radars.
The goal is to find out just how much we can learn about such an asteroid in only a week, Moissl said.
It will also serve as training for how the network "would react to a threat" possibly heading our way in the future, he added.
'Scientifically interesting'
Moissl said preliminary data suggests 2023 DZ2 is "a scientifically interesting object", indicating it could be a somewhat unusual type of asteroid. But he added that more data was needed to determine the asteroid's composition.
The asteroid will again swing past Earth in 2026, but poses no threat of impact for at least the next 100 years -- which is how far out its trajectory has been calculated.
Earlier this month a similarly sized asteroid, 2023 DW, was briefly given a one-in-432 chance of hitting Earth on Valentine's Day 2046.
But further calculations ruled out any chance of an impact, which is what normally happens with newly discovered asteroids. Moissl said 2023 DW was now expected to miss Earth by some 4.3 million kilometers.
Even if such an asteroid was determined to be heading our way, Earth is no longer defenseless.
Last year, NASA's DART spacecraft deliberately slammed into the pyramid-sized asteroid Dimorphos, significantly knocking it off course in the first such test of our planetary defenses.
© 2023 AFP
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In the world's highest mountain range, global warming threatens thousands of glaciers, resulting in increasingly frequent natural disasters: landslides, avalanches and glacier collapses. Our reporters Alban Alvarez and Navodita Kumari travelled to the small northern Indian state of Uttarakhand, where these disasters are compounded by a rush to develop infrastructure such as hydroelectric dams.
Up in the foothills of the Himalayas, the region of Uttarakhand is getting the Indian government’s attention. The state of 10 million inhabitants, bordering both China and Nepal, has become a vast open-air building site. The government of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi fully intends to take advantage of the region’s geographical position to make it a hub for renewable energy.
India, the world’s third-biggest carbon emitter, which gets 80 percent of its electricity from coal, is counting on the large-scale construction of hydroelectric power stations in the region to achieve carbon neutrality by 2070. Uttarakhand certainly has assets: the state is home to dozens of rivers, especially the Ganges and the Yamuna, the country’s largest waterways. But in addition to being located in a seismic zone, Uttarakhand is threatened by global warming, resulting in the accelerated melting of its glaciers.
For the past decade, the region has experienced natural disasters every year: landslides, avalanches, glacier collapses and even "cloudbursts" – sudden storms that can destroy a valley in a few minutes. In 2013, some 10,000 Hindu pilgrims died there during sudden bad weather while praying at a religious site. The bodies of almost 4,000 of them were never found.
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This week the Biden administration moved swiftly to contain the fallout from the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, reassuring depositors and other wobbling institutions.
Biden wants to head off a financial crisis, which could spark a recession and potentially harm millions of people. The government's decisive actions here are reasonable and probably necessary.
But it's hard not to notice how quickly the government moves when there’s a threat that the wealthy may lose some money, versus the much less urgent response to non-billionaires in trouble.
READ MORE: Ron DeSantis and right-wingers falsely blame wokeness and diversity for SVB collapse
Bank bailouts happen instantly.
Bailouts for student debt, or medical debt or for children in poverty occur on a much longer, and in many cases infinite, timetable.
We shouldn't let a bank collapse destroy the economy. But if we have the money and the will to protect the wealthy, we should find the money and the will to protect those who are struggling as well.
High interest, high recklessness
Silicon Valley Bank was done in by rising interest rates and its own short-sightedness.
It's the main banker for Silicon Valley technology and life sciences companies. As interest rates rose, its Treasury bond investments became less attractive.
In addition, startup funds dried up, and tech firms and executives started to withdraw money.
The problem was exacerbated by the fact that SVB had many depositors with large accounts over $250,000, the cap (in theory) for Federal government protection. A majority of its deposits were uninsured.
SVB lobbied to put itself in this precarious position.
CEO Greg Becker urged the government in the mid-2010s to weaken Dodd-Frank so that smaller banks like SVB would no longer be subject to yearly stress tests.
Trump complied with that request in 2018, rolling back regulations, and setting the stage for SVB's disaster.
When the bank's precarious position became clear last week, tech investors with uninsured deposits — most notably billionaire Republican donor Peter Thiel — panicked.
The bank couldn't find a buyer, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation stepped in and took it over.
Protecting depositors
The administration moved swiftly to try to contain the crisis of confidence. It protected all deposits at SVB and another struggling institution, Signature Bank — even those over $250,000.
The funds come from a bank levy established in Dodd-Frank.
The government also made it easier for mid-size banks to obtain funding.
The goal is to show the public that funds are available and that the federal government is serious about protecting depositors (though not the bank's investors and owners).
We still don't know whether this will work or whether more funds will be needed.
Stocks in First Republic Bank plunged on Monday. The market remains nervous, and there is a possibility of more bank failures, though it seems clear that the government is taking this seriously and will respond with further measures if needed.
Help for the wealthy, no help for you
Again, a run on the banking system could have economy-wide repercussions. No one wants a repeat of 2008. It makes sense that Biden wants to act decisively.
However, the fact remains that the people directly benefiting here are mostly people with more than $250,000 in deposits in individual accounts. They have a lot of money.
In addition, many of these people have warned vocally about moral hazards and have argued strongly against government aid.
Thiel has backed candidates like Ohio Senator JD Vance. Vance has tried to claim (falsely) that student debt relief benefits the rich.
He's notably not on the rooftops right now demanding that Biden refuse to help tech billionaires like Thiel, though.
Obama-era National Economic Director Larry Summers insisted that Biden needed to bail out banks. Now is not the time for "moral hazard lectures," he insisted.
But when Biden announced his student loan forgiveness program, Summers was all about the moral hazard lectures, arguing that student loan relief was a giveaway to the affluent.
Similarly, wealthy investor Jason Calacanis claimed that bailouts "remove accountability" when student loan debt was at issue.
But this weekend he was screaming in all caps that "MAIN STREET" was going to lose their bank deposits, even though most people on main street don't have accounts with over $250,000.
People who aren't rich
Thiel, Summers and Calacanis are hypocrites. But they also sincerely believe that the wealthy are more important than everyone else.
In their view, you don't need to bail out students — or those with medical debt or children in poverty — because the middle class and the poor don't create jobs and can't swiftly destroy banks by abandoning their over-$250,000 accounts.
The truth, though, is that instability in the US economy is in large part due to the fact that we funnel so many resources to irresponsible reckless tech-bro billionaire gamblers, rather than investing in a strong, stable middle class.
The US has very high rates of inequality compared to its peers. That inequality almost certainly slows economic growth.
It also undermines innovation — that supposed idol of Silicon Valley billionaires.
When students leave college with massive debt, they can't take risks and pursue new ideas or projects. When people's health care is tied to their jobs, they are going to be afraid to pursue new opportunities.
When a country has high child poverty rates, it means that millions of children live in precarious circumstances, and lack nutrition, time, and stability needed to take full advantage of educational opportunities.
Main street vs. the worst people
The US should be giving everyone the tools they need to contribute to the economy and help each other.
Instead, we funnel money to Peter Thiel, who spends it on putting unqualified right-wing nutjobs in the Senate, and Elon Musk, who spends it on bringing Nazis back to Twitter.
Biden has tried to move towards greater equity with his student debt relief plan and the Expanded Child Tax Credit for poor children — both initiatives now stalled or gutted by conservative lawmakers.
Part of the government's job is to safeguard the economy.
That sometimes means bailing out banks. But it should also mean helping students, children, working people and poor people.
An economy built for Larry Summers and Peter Thiel is an economy that will always be in crisis.
READ MORE: The GOP's magic words have lost their magic
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