- Asteroid trackers say the U.S. government
may be getting serious about the threat of an asteroid or comet colliding
with Earth.
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- Scientists attending Space '98 and Robotics
'98 conferences in Albuquerque, N.M., this week report serious discussions
between NASA and the Air Force to collaborate on identifying any nearby
flying rock that might be on a collision course with Earth, the Albuquerque
Tribune reports.
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- But they'll believe it, they say, when
they see the funds and expanded programs needed to effectively search the
universe for potentially devastating "near-Earth objects."
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- Nearly 400 space scientists and engineers
are attending the conferences, and they say they have already found dozens
of potentially hazardous objects, or "PHO's," whose orbits may
someday bring them too close to Earth for comfort.
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- The threat is real, even if it may seem
improbable and distant, says Mark Boslough, a scientist at Sandia National
Laboratories in Albuquerque.
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- Boslough accurately predicted that a
series of comet impacts on Jupiter four years ago would have the explosive
force of more than all of the world's nuclear bombs. The impacts were so
extreme they sent Jovian debris streaming into space and caused lasting
atmospheric changes on the giant planet's face, the Tribune reports.
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- But without more government money, it
will take decades to find all the asteroids that could pose an Earthly
threat, says Eleanor Helin, who directs the Near Earth Asteroid Tracking
program at the National Air and Space Administration's Jet Propulsion Laboratory
in Pasadena, Calif.
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- Her program alone has identified 118
threatening asteroids among 12,025 new ones it has identified in the last
few years. She says the program needs to be tripled.
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- New Mexico astronomer Alan Hale, who
co-discovered one of the most spectacular comets ever seen, Comet Hale-Bopp,
suggested government officials may sense that the issue may be "capturing
the public's fancy."
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- Boslough says scientists have plenty
of evidence that potentially catastrophic collisions occur about once a
century, but the ultimate damage depends on where on Earth the object strikes
and how big it is, the Tribune says.
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- Scientists believe the evidence is compelling
that a comet struck Earth 65 million years ago and caused the extinction
of the dinosaurs.
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