- To improve knowledge and raise public awareness about
the threat of an asteroid smacking planet Earth, two separate facilities
were announced recently in the UK.
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- The Comet and Asteroid Information Network (CAIN) launched
Jan. 1 and is managed by the International Spaceguard Information Center
in Wales.
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- CAIN will pool information and research efforts of at
least 9 universities and institutions, including the Armagh Observatory.
The non-governmental consortium is expected to be a vocal proponent of
increased international funding for research into detecting and tracking
objects that could pose a risk to the planet.
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- No known asteroid is currently on a collision course
with Earth. Yet scientists cite past impacts, such as one thought to have
led to the demise of dinosaurs 65 million years ago, as evidence that civilization
ought to prepare itself for the inevitable.
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- In a separate move, the British government announced
it would open an Information Center on Near Earth Objects (NEOs) this spring,
following through on plans spelled out nearly a year ago.
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- The governmental center, which will operate out of National
Space Science Center in Leicester, will educate the public about asteroids
and comets. It also aims to "analyze the potential threat from NEOs"
that might hit Earth.
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- This threat "has been an issue of increased international
interest and concern over recent years," said Science Minister Lord
Sainsbury. "By setting up an information center we are helping the
UK play a full and prominent role in an area that requires international
action."
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- A Gesture
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- The astronomer Sir Patrick Moore said the center would
provide useful information to the public for a low cost. But other researchers
are waiting for the British government to do more. They point out that
the center, which will cost £300,000 over three years, is little
more than a public relations facility.
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- Benny Peiser, an NEO expert at Liverpool John Moores
University, called the center a "goodwill gesture by the UK government"
but said its tight budget and lack of science personnel would limit its
effectiveness.
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- The center will not be involved in the search for asteroids,
though it might fund two small telescopes on the Canary Islands for doing
follow-up surveys on asteroids that have been discovered by other researchers.
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- "There are concerns, however, that these instruments
will simply reproduce the search efforts of other teams in the Northern
Hemisphere," Peiser said.
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- Astronomers had hoped the UK would fund the construction
of a large telescope in the Southern Hemisphere, where the NEO search has
been less comprehensive. While a government task force set up two years
ago recommended the telescope, no decision has been rendered.
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- The Threat
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- Researchers estimate that there are about 1,000 NEOs
larger than 1 kilometer, the minimum size considered capable of causing
global devastation. Though no one knows for sure, such objects are suspected
of hitting Earth every 100,000 to 300,000 years.
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- If one were found to be headed our way, experts say it's
possible the rock could be deflected or destroyed by detonating nuclear
explosives on or near it. The technology needed to mount such a mission
has yet to be developed.
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- For now, nonetheless, the search is on.
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- NASA has a congressionally mandated goal to find 90 percent
of these large NEOs by 2008. Roughly 500 have been found by various individuals
and international research teams. But as more are discovered, those that
remain become statistically harder to root out, and most astronomers don't
expect NASA's goal to be met on time.
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- NASA also funds some of the research and follow-up observations
needed to pin down the orbits of NEOs, a critical next-step in accessing
any possible danger. But the agency -- one of the few that has the kind
of budget needed for such work on large scales -- prefers to channel most
of its money into space-based research rather than ground-based observations.
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- Just last month, NASA reduced funding of an NEO program
at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico and announced intentions to shuttle
the program over to the National Science Foundation. An NSF spokesman was
surprised by the suggestion and said his agency had not had time to react
to it.
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- Meanwhile, critics have long maintained that not enough
is being done to find smaller NEOs, which could cause regional destruction
if they hit Earth. Others worry that the cost and resources needed to find
all these small space rocks, which number in the millions, is prohibitive,
at least in the near term.
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- Other institutions inside and outside the United States
contribute to the search and research of NEOs. The Minor Planet Center,
in Cambridge, Massachusetts, serves as the clearinghouse for all data collected
on space rocks.
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- The two new centers represent an increased internationalization
of the effort, but it's not yet clear what role they will ultimately play.
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