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| Sandy Clark examines the Unexplained |
Issue 22 available now £2.80 ($4.99)
For a few hours in March, every man, woman and child on Earth looked death in the face. Astronomers at the International Astronomical Union found an asteroid they described as the most dangerous object in the solar system. The mile-wide asteroid was thought to be heading for an exceedingly close brush with the Earth if not a collision on October 26, 2028. An impact of the huge rock known as asteroid XF11 would have had a similar effect on the human race as it did on the dinosaurs all those millions of years ago. The timing of this asteroid news was actually pretty spooky given the release of two high-profile meteor movies Deep Impact and Armageddon later this year.
Television and radio stations around the world carried news of the deadly intruder, but luckily for you, me and everyone you've ever met, they were wrong. Data found by researcher Paul W Chodas on photographic plates from the Palomar Observatory showed that the asteroid would miss the Earth by a distance of 867,000 - 954,000km (roughly 2.5 times the distance to the moon) and the probability of Earth impact is in reality a big fat zero.
Monkeys Attack!
Gangs can be a serious threat to public safety, but they have taken on a bizarre twist in Japan. In Ito a gang of six monkeys has been terrorizing villagers. They arrived in late January and began attacking and biting people forcing the local government to close schools and send out hunting parties.
What the Hail
The Indian state of Andhra Pradesh has been the location for some incredible weather conditions. On March 28 gigantic hailstones struck villages to the North of Adoni, dramatically ranging in size from bullets to coconuts and apparently weighing up to three pounds. The end results of the ice storm were devastating. Two members of the surrounding villages were killed as well as over 2000 sheep, and many of their vital crops were destroyed.
Mars Needs Bugs
A pair of researchers at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee are working on the next generation of explorers. Ephrahim Garcia and Michael Goldfarb have been given a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency grant to build small disposable remote controlled bugs for research purposes. These tiny critters use the same technology that vibrates pagers to scamper across the ground. Mounted with a sensor or camera each, they could give soldiers an army of extra eyes. On Mars, they could be used in riskier situations than probes used today because to lose one wouldn’t mean the end of the entire mission.
