[meteorite-list] Task force to monitor asteroid threats

From: E.P. Grondine <epgrondine_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri Aug 18 10:46:06 2006
Message-ID: <20060818144554.35450.qmail_at_web36908.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Hi all -

It is truly depressing to see Morrison obtaining the
chair of the new task force.

While Morrison is to be applauded for his early work
taking on Velikovsky, and for his early work with
Shoemaker, since then he has not done very well. It
is not his backing of Muller, which resulted in the
wasting of 10's of millions of dollars, it is his
efforts at stifling of Clube and Napier that is his
true fault. That was not science on his part, that
was politics. When Morrison states that the cometary
impact hazard is 5% of the total hazard, he speaks
nonsense, based on nothing.

This will end with time, and perhaps archaeology will
end it, but the damage will have been done. As for
impact, we still have no word on where the 64
fragments of SW3 will be in 2022; as for US leadership
in space, China will begin work on their CAPS system
in 2018.

Thanks for letting me vent.

good hunting,
Ed
Man and Impact in the Americas

--- Darren Garrison <cynapse_at_charter.net> wrote:

> http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14395543/
>
> Task force to monitor asteroid threats
> Astronomers focus on worries about impact
> catastrophe
> The Associated Press
>
>
> Updated: 3:14 p.m. ET Aug 17, 2006
> PRAGUE, Czech Republic - They?re out there, hidden
> among a haze of stars ?
> killer asteroids. Now the world?s astronomers are
> keeping a wary eye to the
> skies for giant objects on a collision course with
> Earth.
>
> Experts say there are about 1,100 comets and
> asteroids in the inner solar system
> that are at least a half-mile (1 kilometer) across,
> and that any one of them
> could unleash a global cataclysm capable of killing
> millions in a single
> blinding flash.
>
> On Thursday, the International Astronomical Union
> said it has set up a special
> task force to sharpen its focus on threats from such
> ?near-Earth objects.?
>
> ?The goal is to discover these killer asteroids
> before they discover us,? said
> Nick Kaiser of the University of Hawaii?s Institute
> for Astronomy, which hopes
> to train four powerful digital cameras on the
> heavens to watch for would-be
> intruders.
>
> There are no asteroid busters to stop one right now,
> but scientists believe that
> one day a defense could be devised, such as using
> spacecraft to divert a killer
> comet.
>
> Congress wants defense plan
> Congress has asked NASA for a plan to comb the
> cosmos for even smaller, more
> distant objects, including asteroids just 1?
> football fields (150 meters)
> across. The space agency is to catalog their
> position, speed and course by 2020.
> Already, there are 103 objects on an ?impact risk?
> watch list.
>
> Scientists warn there are as many as 100,000 of
> these ?smaller? heavenly bodies
> with the potential to take out entire cities or set
> off a tsunami like the
> killer wave that swept through the Indian Ocean in
> December 2004.
>
> Earth?s craters bear silent witness to what can
> happen even when a smallish
> asteroid slams home. In 1908, one struck remote
> central Siberia, unleashing as
> much energy as a 15-megaton nuclear bomb.
> Fortunately, it wiped out 60 million
> trees, not people. Had it hit a populated area, the
> loss of life would have been
> staggering.
>
> Good news: Risk reduced
> There?s some recent good news too: Earth?s most
> pressing threat ? the asteroid
> 99942 Apophis ? appears to have eased. Scientists
> initially gave it a 1-in-5,500
> chance of hitting the planet in 2036, with enough
> power to wipe out the New York
> City metro area. But experts said Thursday the
> latest observations suggest those
> odds have dwindled to 1-in-30,000.
>
> They won?t be sure until it makes an earlier pass in
> 2029, when it?s expected to
> come within 18,640 miles (30,000 kilometers) of
> Earth. If that sounds
> comfortably distant, consider this: It?s closer than
> many commercial satellites
> and a good deal nearer than the moon.
>
> Although close encounters are unnerving, they give
> astronomers a unique
> opportunity to get a better glimpse of asteroids and
> comets ? the leftover
> building materials of the universe ? and gain a
> better understanding of the
> origins of the solar system.
>
> Scientists say expanding their database of the
> objects crowding Earth?s
> neighborhood could help produce a permanent warning
> system like those that now
> monitor the Pacific for tsunamis or keep tabs on
> volcanoes and earthquake zones.
>
> Give the world a decade or so of lead time to deal
> with a specific threat, they
> say, and it stands a chance of getting out of harm?s
> way ? perhaps by sending up
> a spacecraft to nudge an asteroid off-course.
>
> ?Right now, unfortunately, there are no ?asteroid
> busters? or hot lines. Who ya
> gonna call?? said Andrea Milani Comparetti, a
> professor of mathematics at
> Italy?s University of Pisa.
>
> Worrying about a scare
> To be on the safe side, astronomers trying to
> determine the odds of one hitting
> Earth work with computer models that surround it
> with thousands of ?virtual
> asteroids.? Experts then map out the likely orbits
> for each one and factor those
> in to come up with the probability of an impact.
>
> But widening the search for threatening objects
> creates a problem: Discoveries
> could become commonplace, either creating
> unnecessary panic and confusion or
> lulling the public into a false sense of
> complacency.
>
>
> ?We?re now going to be finding such objects once a
> week instead of once a year,?
> said David Morrison, a NASA scientist who will chair
> the new task force.
>
> ?Only in Hollywood do asteroids arbitrarily change
> orbits,? he said. ?But there
> is great potential for misunderstanding. Dealing
> with probability and risk is a
> problem for all of us, whether we?re dealing with
> asteroid impacts or terrorist
> attacks.?
>
> Bottom line: Mankind may not be able to dodge every
> cosmic bullet.
>
> ?It?s through collisions that planets are born,?
> said Giovanni Valsecchi of
> Italy?s National Institute of Astrophysics. ?And
> it?s through collisions that
> planets die.?
>
> ? 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
> This material may not be
> published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Received on Fri 18 Aug 2006 10:45:54 AM PDT