Fireball spewing Comet Schwassman-Wachmann returning in 2011

Note the fragment distribution in those images. SW-3 is an Earth crossing orbit. And it is not an uncommon object. Someone want to tell me again that multiple impact cluster events are 'highly unlikely'?

Hi George - You've noticed. If SW3 doesn't all turn into magic comet dust,like NASA has been claiming for quite a while, then we have a problem. If SW3 does turn into magic comet dust, then we have a different problem in 2022. Ed

Why 2022 and not the two prior passes? I think I understand but if you could elaborate for the Tuskamers...

This is the very interesting comet that a long with the Shoemaker-Levy 9 Comet at Jupiter is cited as displaying similar but much smaller ongoing disintegration, much like that is believed my many to have affected Earth starting up to 20,000 years ago and continuing on through the Younger Dryas and remaining a threat today. Interesting that it may also pose a threat to Earth. Yes, E.P. how and why is it to be a perceived to be a problem for Earth?

The Comet Linear broke up pretty much the same way SW-3 did. The Deep Impact (http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/deepimpact/media/deepimpact_water_ice.html) mission to comet TEMPEL 1 showed the head of that comet to have the consistency of a dirty snow bank. It also showed that the object is a geologically active body. Comet HOLMES (http://today.ucla.edu/portal/ut/photo/holmes_animation.gif) is unstable, and prone to violent outbursts.  Comet LINEAR (http://www.solarviews.com/eng/linear.htm) , and Comet Scwassmann-Wachmann 3 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=eATMJA0NTmM), make it abundantly clear that total, explosive, fragmentation of a comet can occur spontaneously at any time. And it can happen before it even gets close to a planet. Mitigation strategies would be limited to civil defense. There would be no turning a cluster of fragments like that aside. If the meek are to inherit the Earth, then the important question becomes; how deep do we need to dig bunkers, and hidey holes?

Hi George - If I remmeber correctly, and since my stroke..., Peter Brwon up at the University of Western Ontario is the expert on SW3. In 2022 the Earth will be in the middle of it's 1.6 billion kilometer long debris stream: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann

Dennis - Once more you've made some mistakes, to put it as politely as I can. First off, there is not much doubt that comet fragment showers MAY occur much more frequently than many (not including myself, by the way) ever imagined, and no one here said otherwise. As a matter of fact, that POSSIBLE freqeuncy is why you can not declare that any feature HAS to be from the YD until proved by field data. It APPEARS that comets are like cats, each one different. What the surface of one is like INDICATES nothing about what the core of another one is like. On fragmentation, SW3 fragmented when it crossed the plane of our solar system, which crossing point just happens to be near Earth's orbit. Most likely gravitational forces. I've never examined Comet LINEAR's fragmentation. The mitigation options are much more complex than you know. You don't believe this but I wish you good luck with your efforts; but then I also wish you would learn to use the conditional, as demonstrated in the CAPS above. E.P. PS - Its Peter Brown, not Brwon.

There would be no turning a cluster of fragments like that aside. If the meek are to inherit the Earth, then the important question becomes; how deep do we need to dig bunkers, and hidey holes?" ahhhhhhhhhhhhh well step one is ahhhhh maybe by learning to pray and but most important would be learning to listening like your life depended on it.. for where to put or not to put the bunker,

Actually, Chicken, a cluster of small fragments could pretty well be vaporized by a physics package.

well no matter what barrier you smarty pants throw up .. turtle Island isn't a safe zone! ;p