It seems like late TL 7 humanity couldn't predict something coming in a hundred years from out of the solar system.
And anything big enough to cause serious damage to the Earth in orbit around the sun would have been seen by the twentieth century.
And no interstellar object would go right into an orbit that could eventually hit Earth.
In short, no way to do my 'humanity knows that an asteroid will hit in a 100 years' idea.
What about a comet with an extremely long parabolic orbit, extending from near the sun to out into the Oort Cloud?
Imagine that it is currently out in Oort Cloud space, takes hundreds of years to complete an orbit, but its trajectory can be calculated (perhaps using historical records of earlier sightings), and appears that it will hit the Earth in 100 years. Is that plausible?
Sort of a 'death by Halley's Comet.'
Quote:
Originally Posted by robkelk
I like the name it actually received better: ʻOumuamua |
That is cool.