[meteorite-list] After Studying Russian Meteor Blast, Experts Get Set For Next Asteroid

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2013 16:23:26 -0800 (PST)
Message-ID: <201302270023.r1R0NQnp020861_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/26/17105332-after-studying-russian-meteor-blast-experts-get-set-for-the-next-asteroid

After studying Russian meteor blast, experts get set for the next asteroid
By Alan Boyle
NBC News
February 26, 2013

The meteor that blew up over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk 11 days ago has
provided a new focus for the international effort to deal with potentially
threatening near-Earth objects, one of NASA's top experts on the issue says.

Lindley Johnson, the executive for the Near Earth Object Observation Program at
NASA Headquarters in Washington, said that the Feb. 15 impact is certain
to become "by far the best-documented meteor and meteorite in history"
- but at the time, he and his colleagues could hardly believe it was happening.

"Our first reaction was, 'This can't be. ... This must be some test of a missile
that's gone awry,'" Johnson told NBC News.

The Chelyabinsk meteor exploded at an estimated altitude of 12 miles (20
kilometers) over the city of 1.1 million in Russia's Urals Mountains, setting
off a shock wave that blew out windows, caused an estimated $33 million in
property damage and injured more than 1,200 people.

It was doubly coincidental for Johnson and his colleagues: The meteor was thought
to have been caused by the breakup of a 17-meter-wide (55-foot-wide), 10,000-ton
asteroid that entered Earth's atmosphere and released the equivalent of 500
kilotons of TNT in explosive energy. All this happened just hours before a
45-meter-wide (150-foot-wide) asteroid, capable of setting off a city-killing
blast, passed within 17,200 miles (27,680 kilometers) of our planet. Adding to
that coincidence, researchers from around the world were gathered in Vienna
for talks aimed at moving forward with an international network to deal
with ... asteroid threats!

The spectacle in Russia "certainly brought renewed interest to our efforts here,"
Johnson said.

He said the recommendations from the researchers were "well-received" and are
moving up the ladder to the next phase in a U.N.-led process for addressing
outer-space threats. An action plan could be considered by the U.N. Committee
on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space during its next meeting in Vienna in June.

Johnson summarized the three main points of the recommendations:

 o Set up an international asteroid warning network, or IAWN, supported
with existing detection assets but incorporating additional contributions. "The
basis of such a network already exists," Johnson said, thanks to NASA, the
European Space Agency, the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet
Center and the NEODyS asteroid-tracking center at the University of Pisa in
Italy. NASA also has partnered with the U.S. Air Force to share tracking data
about near-Earth objects. Just this week, a $25 million Canadian-built
satellite known as NEOSSat was launched to look for small asteroids in
Earth-threatening orbits.

 o Bring the world's space agencies together in a new working group called the
Space Mission Planning and Advisory Group - also known as SMPAG (pronounced
like "Same Page"). The group's purpose, Johnson said, would be to "get all the
agencies on the 'same page' as far as assessing what capabilities could be
brought to bear should there be a threatening asteroid detected."

 o Put asteroid experts in contact with countries around the world, to advise
disaster response agencies about the nature of a potential impact event - that is,
the area expected to be affected by the event, the potential impact and the scale
of a potential evacuation. "It's an offshoot of the warning network," Johnson said.
If the asteroid behind the Russian meteor had been detected in advance, for
example, the expert network might have advised emergency workers about
the potential for a midair blast and the resulting shock wave (although
Johnson said he was "surprised" by the shock wave's effect). Until last
year, NASA spent about $4 million a year to track near-Earth objects,
or NEOs, and Johnson said the program "has accomplished quite a bit in
the relatively short time that it's been in existence." About 95 percent
of the potentially threatening asteroids bigger than a kilometer (half-mile)
wide have been detected. However, now NASA is working on charting the
asteroids down to a width of 100 meters (330 feet). To fund that more
difficult task, the annual funding level for NEO research was raised to
$20 million a year.
 
NASA is using that money to beef up its capabilities for spotting smaller
asteroids, through programs such as the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert
System, or ATLAS, which is due to get $5 million over the next five years.
But less than a million dollars a year is going toward studies aimed at
figuring out what to do if a threatening asteroid is found, Johnson said.
The potential strategies range from diverting it gently with the aid of
gravity tractors or space paintball guns, to blasting it with nukes, Bruce
Willis-style.

"It really depends on the scenario that we'd be faced with," Johnson said.
"It depends on how big the object is. It depends on how long we have to do
something about it. And if we do the search-and-detection job right, we will
find a potential hazard many years if not decades before it becomes an
immediate threat. There may be technologies available at that time that we
never thought about. I don't get too worked up about trying to find an
immediate technology tthat we've got to have right now to do that. Our focus
is to find them as early as we can and have the maximum amount of time to
do something about it."
Received on Tue 26 Feb 2013 07:23:26 PM PST