Sunday, October 27, 2013

What If Earth Was Threatened by An Asteroid Strike? Astronaut Panel Brings Up Ideas To Search, Deflect These Threats

What If Earth Was Threatened by An Asteroid Strike? Astronaut Panel Brings Up Ideas To Search, Deflect These Threats:
Computer generated simulation of an asteroid strike on the Earth. Credit: Don Davis/AFP/Getty Images
What If Earth Was Threatened by An Asteroid Strike? Astronaut Panel Brings Up Ideas To Search, Deflect These Threats
Computer generated simulation of an asteroid strike on the Earth. Credit: Don Davis/AFP/Getty Images
“If we get hit 20 years from now, that’s not bad luck. That’s stupidity.”
That’s what former NASA astronaut Ed Lu has to say about asteroids and our efforts to search for them. He delivered those comments at a panel discussion today at New York’s American Museum of Natural History. He and several other astronauts spoke on behalf of the Association of Space Explorers (which, as the name implies, consists of astronauts, cosmonauts and the like.)
We guess that as astute readers of our publication, you know that a planetary threat from asteroids (and comets) exists. And there’s certainly more we can do; when that 17-meter asteroid blasted Russia earlier this year, Lu said most space agencies learned about it from social media!
So what’s being done about these threats? Here’s a roundup of the panel discussion’s information and some related information.

No comments:

Post a Comment