[meteorite-list] Asteroids Could Trigger Nuclear War

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:00:06 2004
Message-ID: <200207150053.RAA12381_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_2128000/2128488.stm

Asteroids 'could trigger nuclear war'
BBC News
July 14, 2002

A small asteroid could accidentally trigger a nuclear war if mistaken for a
missile strike, experts have warned.

Scientists and military chiefs studying the threat are calling for a global
warning centre to be set up to inform governments immediately of asteroid
impacts.

The risk is seen as particularly grave if an asteroid blast were to happen
in areas of military tension, such as over nuclear-armed neighbours India
and Pakistan

Each year about 30 asteroids several metres in length pierce the atmosphere
and explode, with even the smaller sized ones unleashing as much energy as
the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima in Japan.

'Panic' reaction

Earlier this month, an Israeli pilot flying an airliner over the Ukraine
reported seeing a blue flash in the sky similar to the type of blast caused
by a surface-to-air missile, despite Ukrainian authorities saying no such
missile had been fired.

Experts now believe the pilot saw an explosion caused by an asteroid
entering the Earth's atmosphere at high speed.

Experts met last week in the US capital Washington DC to discuss what might
have happened had such an explosion occurred over a volatile area such as
the India-Pakistan region.

"Neither of those nations has the sophisticated sensors we do that can
determine the difference between a natural Neo (near-Earth object) impact
and a nuclear detonation," Air Force Brigadier General Simon Worden from the
US Space Command told the Aerospace Daily newspaper.

"The resulting panic in the nuclear-armed and hair-trigger militaries there
could have been the spark for a nuclear war."

Warning centre call

The incident over Ukraine was also extremely politically sensitive.

Last year, 78 people died when a Russian airliner flying from Israel was hit
over Ukraine by what was believed to have been a stray missile fired during
a military exercise.

Although the US has its own sophisticated military satellites which can
detect launches and detonations of weapons and asteroid explosions, General
Worden said that he and other experts would like to see a new warning centre
established which would gather information on asteroid explosions and make
it available to all governments.

It is hoped that the shared information would prevent a disaster occurring,
and a study looking at the possibility of such a centre is now reportedly
being developed in the US Defense Department.
Received on Sun 14 Jul 2002 08:53:29 PM PDT