Attack of The Killer Asteroids ! Scientists Say It's Coming
Pastor Dale Morgan
Attack of The Killer **Asteroids ! Scientists Say It's Coming*
Apr 8th, 2007 2:00 PM
Anja Tranovich | Columbia News Service
To David Morrison, a senior scientist at NASA, the Earth orbits the sun
in a sort of cosmic shooting gallery. More than 1 million asteroids spin
around the sun, and it is Morrison's job to figure out which of these
bodies of rock, dust and metal could come crashing down on Earth.
Right now, NASA is tracking 127 asteroids that have a very small chance
of striking the planet. That number is about to get a lot higher.
Stronger telescopes, and a new mandate from Congress, will allow
scientists to detect thousands of smaller asteroids more likely to hit
Earth. And scientists are plotting ways to stop them, from "gravity
tractors" to solar ray guns.
"There is no question that these will hit the Earth," says Russell
Schweickart, a former Apollo astronaut who is involved in a group
studying asteroids. "The question is how often we will have to do
something about it." In fact, Schweickart thinks world leaders might
have to do something about it very soon, within the next 15 years.
In early March, Russian, European, Japanese and American scientists held
a Planetary Defense Conference in Washington to discuss the threats and
plot a strategy for dealing with them.
Identifying asteroids close to the Earth is the priority right now, says
Dave Jonta, a conference spokesman. A large asteroid could cause what
scientists call an "impact winter": a huge volume of dust gets thrown
into the atmosphere, completely or partially blocking the sun's light,
causing crop loss, disease and possible global starvation. And smaller
asteroids could kill hundred of thousands, if not millions of people,
Schweickart says.
A group of experts, scientists, diplomats and international lawyers will
meet in May to confront issues such as what country will finance
asteroid-destruction missions.
One problem: Because of the difficulty in projecting an asteroid's
orbit, scientists often can only predict the probability that a specific
asteroid will hit the Earth. So international leaders might have to take
action before knowing for certain what path an asteroid might take. "We
may have to spend $300 million to fly a mission that, in the end, wasn't
needed," Schweickart says, "but that's a lot better than living with a
10 percent chance that New York City will be hit."