We Could Get Hit!
Department:
Asteroid Impacts
Teaser:
A new report from the National Academy of Sciences finds that NASA does not have the funds to identify all potentially hazardous asteroids. Nuclear weapons are only effective against an incoming rock discovered years before impact, but at the moment we have no other means to mitigate a hazard to the Earth.
Source:
SPACE.com Download time: Jan 23 2010 7:59 AM ET
The United States must do more to safeguard the Earth against destruction by an asteroid than merely prepping nuclear missiles, a new report has found.
The 134-page report, released Friday by the National Academy of Sciences, states that the $4 million spent by the United States to identify all potentially dangerous asteroids near Earth is not enough to do the job mandated by Congress in 2005. NASA is in dire need of more funding to meet the challenge, and less than $1 million is currently set aside to research ways to counter space rocks that do endanger the Earth — measures like developing the spacecraft and technology to deflect incoming asteroids — the report states.…
See SPACE.com for links to further info.
Also see the stories in Sky and Telescope, Universe Today, Florida Today, and Wired.
