Catching Planet Killers

If whatever hit Jupiter last week—and astronomers might never know what it was—had instead struck Earth, it would have caused catastrophic damage to human civilization.

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Complete entry

Posted by Frank  on  08/02  at  05:15 PM

"If we hope to survive long as a civilization, we must make use of existing and emerging technologies to first find and then deflect the next planet killer before it gets here. "

Isn't there a whole long list of other global or local threats, with probabilities even greater, and with a higher "avertability factor," that deserve our attention and money?

Posted by Frank Glover  on  08/04  at  03:26 AM

Fortunately, we're a civilization that can walk and chew gum at the same time. Increasing searches for potentially threatening NEOs is relative pocket change that can be done with ground-based instruments.

And even if a serious threatening object is never found, the data still has value. Locating, tracking and determining something of the nature of these objects will be needed if we're ever to visit them or or even utilize their material content, without having to go all the way to the main asteroid belt...

Posted by Mike Treder  on  08/04  at  07:07 AM

Yes, I agree with what Frank Glover said.

The search for near-Earth objects (NEOs) is not very costly, especially if it is conducted on a cooperative international basis, and involving government, academic, and individual volunteer efforts.

Although the odds of detecting and stopping a large comet or asteroid that could threaten civilization are small, they are greater than zero, and the cost of ignoring the search is, well, potentially everything.

Posted by CygnusX1  on  08/04  at  01:52 PM

Sentry is a highly automated collision monitoring system that continually scans the most current asteroid catalog for possibilities of future impact with Earth over the next 100 years. Whenever a potential impact is detected it will be analyzed and the results immediately published here...

http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/risk/

That reminds me... where on Earth, did I leave my telescope...doh!

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