Dont worry guys NASA will take care

Movies love to depict the end of the world. Some, such as "2012", present rather unrealistic scenarios while others, such as "Armageddon", although with scientific inconsistencies galore, describe a more likely picture. But worry not, the world is not going to end any time soon -- at least not because of an asteroid impact.

NASA astronomers are keeping a sharp eye on the sky to map the orbits of nearby asteroids to reassure us that none of them is going to hit the earth in the next few decades. In the event that astronomers do find a potentially destructive asteroid coming our way, a few deflection mechanisms have even been considered. What is needed is to go from the paper to space to make sure these mechanisms work. But even that seems to be on its way.
Asteroids are small rocky bodies that orbit the Sun much like the earth and other planets do. Professional and amateur telescopes map the skies every night in search of these space rocks. Because astronomers understand exactly what physical laws govern the motion of these bodies, once they detect one, they need only a few observations to determine where and when it will be in the next few decades. Determining longer-term orbital paths is more complicated because, over time, the gravitational pull of nearby planets may alter the asteroids' orbits. But that is why NASA closely tracks the objects it finds.
If there is a large enough body at risk of colliding with the earth in the near future and causing serious damage, alarm bells will ring. The current research program is designed to find the objects that pass within 50 million kilometers of our planet, a third of the distance from the earth to the sun. Of these, an estimated 1,050 have diameters of a kilometer or more; an impact by such a large asteroid could have worldwide effects. Fortunately, of the 903 large objects found so far, none is expected to hit the earth any time soon.
But most of us are aware that large asteroids do sometimes hit our planet. The most famous example is the impact thought to have caused the extinction of the dinosaurs about 65 million years ago. The 15-kilometers-wide asteroid is believed to have released a billion times more energy than the Hiroshima atomic bomb upon impacting the earth at Chicxulub in Mexico.
Small asteroids may also cause damage, even if only at a local or regional level. In 1908, an asteroid a few tens of meters across hit central Siberia near the Tunguska river. The resulting explosion, roughly 1,000 times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb, flattened around 2,000 square kilometers of forest. It is not believed to have claimed victims; humans were lucky enough that the collision occurred in a deserted area as opposed to a densely populated city where millions could have been wiped out.
Fortunately, these events are rare. On average, Tunguska-sized asteroids collide with the earth every 200 to 300 years, while catastrophic impacts similar to the Chicxulub event are much more infrequent. Still, the earth is not free from danger. While worldwide damage is unlikely, an impact capable of causing local or even regional damage is much less so.
That is when the "deflection team" would come to save us. Given a decade or so warning, current technology offers a few solutions to turn the hit into a miss. One of them consists in changing the asteroid's velocity by crashing large amounts of copper or lead into it. The closest astronomers got to testing this solution was when they crashed a spacecraft into a comet a few years ago. In that case the craft was too light and only negligible changes to the comet's orbit have been detected.
The nuclear-weapons option is also viable, but not quite in the "Armageddon" way. It consists in setting off a few nuclear weapons above the surface of the asteroid to slightly change its orbit while making sure the object is not fractured. The shell of material resultant from the explosion would hit the surface of the asteroid facing it. By expanding and blowing off, the shell would be expected to produce recoil on the asteroid, changing its speed ever so slightly. If this change were to act for several years, the orbital path of the asteroid could be altered enough to avoid collision with the earth. The more spectacular alternative of blowing up the asteroid, popular in the movies, wouldn't be as useful since the pieces from the explosion could still pose a threat.
While these options may work in theory, it is advisable to test them before they are actually needed to prevent a collision. But there is good news for those worried about future asteroid impacts.  "The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy has just recommended to Congress that NASA begin preparing a deflection capacity". So it seems NASA may soon be testing these deflection technologies in space to make sure they will work if a collision needs to be avoided.
Some things are just like in the movies: the Americans are in the lead when it comes to saving the world from a catastrophe.

An unbiased outlook on Kashmi crisis

 

In 1948, the United Nations created a resolution for the warring nations of India and Pakistan over the area of Kashmir that allowed for the people of Kashmir to join either nation. Pursuant to the resolution, the two nations were instructed to hold a vote in Kashmir but it was never carried out. As a result, the area was divided and ruled separately, harsh conflict has continued ever since.

            This dispute is symbolic of the “age old” Indo-Pakistani antagonism that has been pursued for centuries. The following positions hold sway still to this day: India wants to maintain the current Line of Control as border line; Pakistan refuses to acknowledge Indian jurisdiction in the area, and neither nation will accept total independence for Kashmir. Of course there is the argument that this dispute is just another battle in the secular war between Muslims and Hindus, but over time the issues has become much more political that religious.

For India, the Line of Control is an abomination, as they understand it, they are entitled to the whole of Kashmir. However, over time they have ceded to the compromise of accepting the Line of Control as an international boundary line but they refuse to give up even one more acre. One of their main concerns is that granting Kashmir any further autonomy would create a movement in other Indian controlled territories.

            For Pakistan, the Kashmir territory is a symbol of their national ethnicity and as such they feel compelled to protect Muslim interests against Hindu (Indian) aggression and attempted control. As Kashmir does have a majority of Muslims in its population, it is an extremely attractive territory for Pakistan. In summary, Kashmir itself is a symbol of the struggle for land, power and identity for the Muslims and Hindus of the Pakistan and India.

            The dispute over Kashmir has caused both governments of India and Pakistan to spend incredible amounts of money and resources to support their forces in the area.  Jammu and Kashmir is the area of the most extreme religious-based terrorism. Kashmiri militants have abuses including, “deliberate targeting of Kashmir Hindus by fundametalists, terrorists groups and foreign mercenaries.” (GlobalSecurity.org) In 2003, India and Pakistan began taking steps to ease the tensions in Kashmir by restoring roadways, railways and air links, and also observed a ceasefire along the Line of Control.

During 2004, the violence in the region slowed and both sides of the Line of Control continued their communication over the dispute although neither nation changed their respective positions on the matter. “In early 2005 India and Pakistan launched a landmark bus service across the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir, allowing families divided by the Line of Control to be reunited for the first time in nearly 60 years.”  After the earthquake in October of 2005, tensions between Pakistan and India slowed to accommodate the great number of displaced peoples and allow for the free movement of humanitarian aid among the region and to remote areas.

            In 2006, the President of Pakistan created a series of alternatives to the Kashmir dispute. He proposed the idea of a self-governance system for Kashmir. The Indian Foreign Ministry countered the President’s offer by stating that they would agree under the condition that the borders were rendered irrelevant. In 2009, after sixty long years of dispute over Kashmir, India still fails to completely control the area. One of the most significant reasons for this failure is due to Pakistan’s creation of an exclusivist Muslim identity that at one time did not exist in the region and now coupled with India’s own failures in their administration of the area—there is still extreme conflict in the area.

Here we are in the year 2010 and the crisis is more than critical. Even the United States has its stake in the outcome of this dispute. “Obama, who alarmed the Indian government last year by telling an interviewer that he might push for a special envoy to Kashmir…but this anger is unlikely to last. What will remain, however, is India’s resistance to international intervention in Kashmir.” “Stone-pelters”, a now common term for the rioters in Kashmir are regular figures in the cycle of demonstrations against Indian rule. “An incident sparks a surge in demonstrations. There are injuries and finally and teenager is killed, hit by a teargas canister or shot. The demonstrations turn to riots, then repression brings a fragile calm. Until another cycle starts.” There are now more than 80,000 people dead in addition to the everyday routine of arrests, curfews, raids and checkpoints enforced by the Indian military in response to Pakistani militant groups. Roughly one million troops have been amassed on both sides of the Line of Control in Kashmir, which lately has prompted international concerns of a nuclear war.

As for the international community, “India is a counterweight, at least in the fantasies of western strategists, to China.”  Obviously the United States especially is anxious for Pakistan and India to come to a resolution largely in part because it would allow for Pakistan to give more focus to the militancy along its shared border with Afghanistan. The settlement of the Kashmir crisis would indeed be a monumental milestone in the international community marking a great peace between two of the most contested nations.