NCIS Meteorite Edition

All due respect to Mark Harmon and CBS, but I started channel surfing last night after deciding that if I had to watch even one more NCIS rerun, I was going to scream. Don’t get me wrong, I like Mark Harmon well enough – and Cote de Pablo too.

I mean, after all, the guy did 20 seasons on that show, and that’s 3X as long as I’ve ever held on to a single job, so he at least deserves kudos for longevity, right? Not only that, but the episode we were watching brought in the entire cast of NCIS Los Angeles for a guest appearance – and my wife is just crazy for LL Cool J – so there’s that. But as I said, I’d reached my limit. Lucky for you I did too.

 

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We get two different PBS channels. One of them is almost always showing Antiques Roadshow. The other has been on this All Creatures Great and Small kick recently. Now if there’s one thing I have less patience for than NCIS reruns, it’s a show about a feuding family of veterinarians. No, I take it back. Any Antiques Roadshow episode that’s not set at the Santa Fe Museum of Folk Art? I am completely done with it. But I digress.

As luck or fate or something would have it, last night one of those two PBS stations (I forget which one) was showing a NOVA special called “Meteor Strike.” And let me tell you, it was mesmerizing. Now I don’t expect you to go out and watch the whole thing. But the two-and-a-half minute trailer, here, is well worth the price of admission. And in case you’re unfamiliar, PBS is free. Well,  as long as you don’t mind watching trailers for upcoming attractions, that is. So give it a look-see – you’ll be glad you did. Also, you can catch the high points as I’ve summarized them below.

 

A blinding flash of light streaked across the Russian sky, followed by a shuddering blast strong enough to damage buildings and send more than 1,000 people to the hospital. On the morning of February 15, 2013, a 7,000-ton asteroid crashed into the Earth’s atmosphere. According to NASA, the Siberian meteor exploded with the power of 30 Hiroshima bombs.

 

A few salient points

 

First, terminology: Asteroids are smaller-than-moon-sized objects made of metal and rock orbiting the sun. They reside mostly in a “belt” out near Jupiter, but sometimes an asteroid wanders away from its fellows and goes into an elliptical sun-orbit that can take it into the earth’s path. That’s when it becomes a meteor. A meteorite is a meteor after it enters the earth’s atmosphere and – usually – burns up before it hits the surface. The most important part? That “usually.”

Second, the long horizon of time: The extinction event that did in the dinosaurs 65 million years ago at the end of the Cretaceous Period was caused by earth’s collision with a 6-mile wide meteorite. The impact crater lies in what is now the Gulf of Mexico just off the Yucatan coast.  75% of all life on earth was wiped out. Only birds, cockroaches, and Mitch McConnell survived. It was a very sad day.

When can we expect the next Big One? Nobody knows: Not the astronomers, not the biologists, and sure as hell not the politicians. What we do know, and what was covered in the PBS documentary last night, is that the object observed  over Russian skies in 2013 – and that was recorded on many Russian motorists’ dash-cams – was the size of a small building.

It exploded – and for the most part disintegrated – before reaching the earth’s surface. And still that explosion – which occurred 15 miles up in the atmosphere – was strong enough to blow out windows and knock people clear out of their chairs in nearby Russian towns and villages. Had the meteorite’s angle of impact been slightly steeper, or had it been made of more hard metal and less crumbly rock, or had it broken up over a major population center, millions of people almost certainly would have been killed.

 

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For comparison, a similar meteorite strike in 1908 completely leveled 800-square miles of trees in Siberia. Statistically speaking, the best estimates are that objects of this size WILL collide with us on average about once every 100 years. Think about that. As one of the scientists who was interviewed on PBS put it, earthlings are traveling through space at 67,000 mph, and we are doing it without an airbag or an insurance policy. Lucky for us, we do have dash-cams. For all the good that’ll do us when the next Big One hits. I said WHEN, not if.

 

In the meantime…

 

May I suggest to the good folks at CBS that they consider a new spin-off from the NCIS franchise. Call it “NCIS Meteorite Edition.” Bring in LL Cool J to star – you know, just to keep my wife happy. Mark Harmon can come out of retirement to be Executive Producer. Bring back Cote de Pablo for a guest appearance. Shoot it on location clear across the globe, all the way from Siberia to Yucatan.

The plot line? Well, that’s obvious: Many Marines and Navy guys are in danger of going the way of the dinosaurs if the squints back at the crime lab don’t come up with an effective solution to this meteorite dilemma – and pronto. Throw in a few celestial near-misses for dramatic effect and I am telling you, it’s gonna be a big hit. And that last episode, the finale? We’re all going out with a bang.

Best of all? We won’t have to watch Antiques Roadshow or All Creatures Great and Small ever again. That’s one thing we can all be sure of.