[meteorite-list] UK Asteroid Centre Opens

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 09:50:28 2004
Message-ID: <200204182316.QAA18312_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1937000/1937575.stm

UK Asteroid Centre Opens
BBC News
April 18, 2002

The UK's first government-backed centre to provide public
information on asteroids and other near-Earth objects opens to the
public on Saturday.

Part of the National Space Centre in Leicester, the project is
receiving £300,000 of government money to feed an increased
public appetite for knowledge about objects relatively close to Earth.

"By setting up an information centre we are helping the UK play a
full and prominent role in an area that requires international rescue,"
Space Minister Lord Sainsbury said.

Experts at the centre will analyse the risk of any of the hundreds of
currently known near-Earth objects actually hitting the planet.

The centre will provide information to the public on the nature,
number and location of near-Earth objects, what might happen if
one hit Earth and how likely this is.

Low probability, high consequence

It is extremely unlikely that an asteroid impact of the scale that may
have wiped out the dinosaurs will take place within the lifetime of
anyone alive today.

But, as the UK government's NEO website makes clear, such an
impact would be catastrophic:

"NEO impacts are an example of low probability, high consequence
events where a single, large impact, although extremely infrequent,
could cause millions of fatalities.

"For many generations, there could be no significant event or
events that cause only regional damage," it says.

Close approach

An asteroid big enough to wipe out a whole country passed within
half a million miles (805,000 kilometres) of the Earth in January.

The distance is close in cosmic terms, but still three times further
away than the Moon.

Astronomers recently calculated that there is a one in three hundred
chance of one particular kilometre (0.6 mile) wide asteroid hitting the
Earth in the year 2880.

UK policy is to improve detection systems and co-operate with
other countries to investigate longer term strategies to deflect an
incoming object.
Received on Thu 18 Apr 2002 07:16:50 PM PDT