BBC reports that “The head of Russia’s federal space agency has said it will work to divert an asteroid which passes near the Earth in the 2030s.”

The asteroid in question is 99942 Apophis, which currently stands at 1:250000 odds of smashing into Earth on 2036. 99942 Apophis also has a close fly-by on Friday, April 13th, 2029.

I am delighted that such a high-level instance is speaking so strongly in favor of asteroid protection.

Indeed, Apophis could be a good candidate to practise deflection, since we already know it’s coming and know the orbit relatively well too. Plus, there is enough time to act.

Some previous posts about the asteroid threat and why it is important to do something about it are here and here.

Today is the day when my native country, in 1917, stopped being a Grand Duchy of Russia and started being an independent nation.

For Finns 6th of December is a very important day. Flags fly, and there’s a traditional military parade in some city. People light (usually blue-white) candles to remember the independence and most importantly the people who died defending the independence.

Another big tradition is the President’s Independence Day reception at the Presidential Castle in Helsinki. They air that on television, and most of the nation (something like nearly half!) sits and watches who is invited, how the movers and shakers are dressed, and who, if any, will cause a scandal this time.

A nice thing is that the reception is streamed on the Internet too, and therefore can be seen from abroad too. So my plans for today are to make some nice food, tuna fillets with leek-onion white wine & parsley sauce and mushroom-leek risotto, open a white wine and watch the reception via Internet!

So I got a discount voucher, and went to a Subway restaurant and grabbed a sandwich.

They gave me a freebie to go, a little bag of potato chips.

Normally, potato chips are made of 1. potatoes, 2. oil, 3. salt. That’s it. How boring.

Luckily this one was barbeque flavored one!

Here’s the list of stuff contained in the barbeque flavor – a handy list if you wish to barbeque-flavorize your morning yoghurt or your living room rug, although it might be wisest to not try to make it at home, unless you possess a meth lab in the basement:

• sugar
• whey powder (from milk)
• rusk (from wheat)
• flavour enhancer (monosodium glutamate, aka. MSG)
• flavourings (contains wheat, soya, lactose)
• colour (paprika extract, caramel)
• sweetener (aspartame)

How could they fit all that into that tiny 27,5 g bag? Well, it was tasty, though.