calculon000 said:
That’s not true. If we saw a deadly one coming 20 years in advance, we could send a probe that attaches on to it a thrusts it on one direction to the side to make it miss earth. The farther away it is when we see it, the less thrust we need to give it and the smaller the probe has to be.
That's SF, calculon. We haven't been able to do that yet and it's very doubtful that we will ever be able to do that. Plus, when we do see asteroids or comets advancing, it's usually like 20 weeks or 20 days in advance. They're just too small, yet big enough to destroy humanity or seriously harm us.
Oh, and don't forget the enormous amount of energy that would be needed to get that asteroid/comet moving in a different direction. A comet especially moves at a tremendous speed and doesn't need no gasoline to power itself. Plus how do you land such a delicate contraption on such an interstellar battering ram. No, calculon, we can't do that yet and I doubt we'll ever will.
Or nudge it with a nuke like they did with that one asteroid a few weeks a go.
Uhm, it wasn't a nuke, you know. And it wasn't an asteroid. It was a small satellite/probe and it's destination was Tempel 1, a comet. And we didn't nudge the comet, either. The satellite simple crashed into it, destroying itself and only slightly scarring the surface of the comet. Even more precise: the probe didn't crash into the comet, but rather the other way around. The probe took it's position and waited to get run over by the comet. That's probably because it's friggin' difficult to land anything successfully on a comet that moves at a relative speed of 37,000km/h.
Destroying a comet or asteroid that is destined to hit our planet, might even be the most moronic thing we'd try to do. Even if we could hit it with a nuke (you Americans, always opting for overkill, eh) we would not be able to just disintegrate the comet, you know? We'd basically blow it into somewhat smaller chunks, and the chance that those chunks would still hit us would be just as big. Basically, we'd be changing one missile (the comet/asteroid) into a cluster bomb (a whole bunch of comets/asteroids), and that's not good.
Anyway: if tomorrow some scientist discovers that there is a comet heading for earth and that it will hit us in, bwah, let's say five years, we'd be fucked. All the stuff you mentioned is still Hollywood material. We'd probably try something to give us some hope, but we would fail miserably.
But astrologers can pose a threat to our plan. The only reason someone becomes a astrologer is the easy sex with brain-washed weak minded women. So they are going to lost their power.