Project Spaceguard: Will humankind go the way of the dinosaurs?

Details Project Spaceguard: Will humankind go the way of the dinosaurs? Project Spaceguard: Will humankind go the way of the dinosaurs?

Jan 1997

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1997iraj...24...19s&link_type=abstract

Irish Astronomical Journal, 1997, 24(1), 19

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

2

Scientific paper

It is an unfortunate fact that the Earth is struck by a massive asteroid or comet from time to time, wreaking havoc on its inhabitants. Astronomical observations indicate that an object at least a kilometre in size strikes our planet about once every 100,000 years, with an explosive power equivalent to about ten million times that of the Hiroshima atomic bomb. The recognition and counting of large impact craters on the Earth and the Moon leads to a derived impact rate in agreement with the above. Theoretical studies of the effect of such large explosions indicate that such an event would lead to a global climatic catastrophe which would cause the death of a large fraction of humankind. Such studies have been validated by our observations of the aftermath of the impacts on Jupiter in 1994, in which small cometary fragments caused damage spread over four times the area of the Earth. It is now well-established that the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago was caused by a massive impact, and there have been many minor and major asteroid and comet impacts since then. While such a calamitous event seems unlikely, the consequences are so enormous that it is a possibility that must be taken seriously; bizarre as it may seem, it is a fact that it is more likely that your gravestone will say that you died due to an asteroid impact than that you died in a jetliner crash. Recognizing the above situation from multi-disciplinary research carried out over the past decade or so, scientists are now urging that the governments of the world group cooperate so that we may determine whether there is some asteroid or comet which is due to strike the Earth within the next century or so: this surveillance programme is called Spaceguard. Unlike the dinosaurs, we are smart enough to spot our potential nemesis coming, and then to shove it out of the way.

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