Witnessing such an event could help get humanity serious about existential risk, from comets or otherwise. I, for one, am hoping for an impact.
The trouble with "getting serious" is there are far more threats on earth which are far more likely and thus more important to deal with. Why give big focus to a potential extinction threat when there are many flash points around the world. Korea for example.
You then have the rising threat of cyber attacks. I wonder how well the general population of a country would do if it lost power for a week or two. I woke up with no power and when it came to making breakfast I felt a bit lost..
A few weeks ago someone in UK had a new virus and was in an isolation ward. I would say as we become even more over-crowded and travel becomes even easier a pandemic would potentially be as devastating and more likely than earth being hit by a large object.
A comet hit Jupiter in the 90's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_Shoemaker%E2%80%93Levy_9) we watched it and did nothing about it.
Yes I understand that we may get serious about our own house when the neighbors house is on fire. But frankly I don't think we will ever get serious.
Right now Mankind's main priorities are in inventing weapons and finding most ingenious ways to kill each other.
This comment is absurd. There are, what, maybe 100,000 people in the entire world right now actively working on creating new weapons. Certainly less than 1/1000 of the population. This has hardly been a priority of mankind since the atom bomb - far more people are directly involved with preventing climate change. Most people are pretty forward thinking.
As far as preparing for a meteor/comet collision with Earth, we would definitely need to see an imminent threat before we really started making progress. If we got a first-hand look at a significant collision with Mars and were able to document just how catastrophic it is to the planet, I definitely think more attention would be paid to preparing for a similar situation on Earth.
Among my peers from college, a fairly broad spectrum of engineers, that number seems to be around 50%. I expect that is rather elevated due to particulars of that region, but I wonder what else can compare?
In other words, not "people working in weapons : the world" but rather "STEM workers in defense : STEM workers qualified to work in defense." Where are we allocating the brains of society?
and don't think for a second that the Jovians have forgotten about that. :(
On the other hand, Mars has been the subject of countless fantasies and observations, we have the surface well mapped and if we get a good look at the impact crater (or the impact itself) it will be a matter of hours before someone overlays a map of NYC or London on the imagery.
Mars being smaller than Earth also adds a lot of weight to the discussion. Something hitting Jupiter is just not unexpected, but if our smaller sibling gets struck then there is something to talk about.
I am, too, but not because of any higher principles or concern for humanity. I simply think it would be incredibly entertaining to watch something that big smash into a planet at Mach 164. The fact that we have quite a few cameras on and above Mars is a huge bonus. It would be the closest we could get to experiencing an impact of that magnitude without the unfortunate side effect of existential oblivion.
I realize how crazy this is, but there's always reason to dream and brainstorm.
On the other hand, I'm glad at least it passed one of the big countries like Russia, which now want to form an international anti-asteroid defense system. If this would've passed across Iceland, nobody would've cared.