As we start making algorithms, let's avoid the temptation of generality. There are many different kinds of things that move in the night sky, and if we make algorithms to find all of them we will be wasting our time.
The thing we are looking for has never before made a pass close to the Earth. It is far away, and dark, and moving really slow way out in the cold places beyond Jupiter. It is in an odd high-inclination orbit. All these factors have combined to ensure that no one has noticed it yet.
Of course, its stealthiness is only part of the problem.
Three or four years from now, if we are lucky enough to look in just the right place, and have software that is good enough to process the images in just the right way, we will see something very much like this:
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| Holophonos |
It is a chunk of nickel-iron about 4 miles across and if we don't see it soon enough it will kill everything you love, everything you hate, everything you hope for or fear, the future and the past, faith, knowledge, history, technology, dance music, fine dining, cities, villages, languages, cars, candy, comedies, proms, pies, parades, breakfasts, basements, butchers, bakers, candle stick makers, and baby's first steps.
There may be more than one reason why there are human beings on this planet. But if Life on Earth could speak, it would say that there's only one reason it cares about.
It would say:
You are here to stop that rock. Do whatever you need to do, use whatever you need to use, but stop that rock.
We can't stop it if we can't see it.
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