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2010
Countries of the Eastern block join the EU 
The Eastward expansion of the EU planned since the late 1990s has
finally begun. Today, on the 22nd of December, 2010, ten countries
were inducted as new members of the European Union. The new member nations are:
Poland, The Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Romania, Bulgaria,
Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. Therewith the European Union's population has
grown to over 450 million people. Integration of the new countries
into the political and economic structure of the EU will not be completed until
end of 2011. The Polish government was very excited about the decision to
accept them into the European Union despite Poland's national debt being
somewhat in excess of the EU-limits."This is an historic day for our nation and for the Polish people. We are proud to be part of such an influential alliance," stated Polish President Igor Mulaiew. Peter Brent, 22nd of December 2010
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2016
Thor's Hammer impacts the Moon 
The 6.5-kilometer diameter asteroid "Thor’s Hammer" hit the
Moon’s surface at approximately 20:04:51 hrs UTC. The impact crater is
approximately 168 square kilometers; the energy expended at impact had the
nuclear potential of all nuclear-armed nations combined. The shockwave tore
huge fragments from the Moons surface, many of which are now approaching Earth
orbit. These fragments have already damaged 36 satellites and the International
Space Station. At this moment the ground control team is attempting to estimate
the damage to the multinational structure, whose crew was evacuated before the
first fragments struck the station. NASA’s official spokesperson
Bruce Warren said the following to the international press: "While the
damage to Earth’s satellites will reach into the billions of dollars, we must
remember how blessed we are – If Thor’s Hammer had hit the Earth, we wouldn't
be having this conversation."
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It is a fact that an Earth impact would have caused billions of casualties. The asteroid was discovered only 9 weeks before impacting the Moon, and its origin is still currently unknown. It may have been a fragment of the Kuiper Belt, thrown out of its regular orbit by a rare close encounter with Neptune. The Kuiper Belt is a huge asteroid field – similar to the asteroid belt located between Mars and Jupiter – orbiting the Sun at a distance of 30 to 50 AU. It contains tens of thousands of large icy remnants from the early accretion of our Solar System. Occasionally, gravitational interactions can cause these objects to cross the orbit of Neptune, with a potential to end up thrown back toward the inner Solar System. Jonathan Dexter for Scientific American,
15th of October 2016 |
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