How to Defend Earth Against an Asteroid Strike
Image credit: NASA
This sounds like something from a science fiction movie, but it is a real threat to the whole planet. It can happen any time. A medium sized asteroid of a few kilometers in diameter crashing into the Earth can completely destroy our civilization and exterminate the whole human race, just like it happened to the dinosaurs.
But fortunately there are some ways to prevent all this. The human race is at the point that it can prevent it’s own extinction. There are numerous ways of deflecting such an asteroid to a safer orbit, but it has to be spotted years before potential impact, otherwise nothing can be done. Therefore, the world’s governments should fund research programs to track all asteroids that can be a potential threat. In such hard economic times this doesn’t look like it’s a priority to most governments, but it should!
Read more: How to Defend Earth Against an Asteroid Strike
Would you like to receive similar articles by email?
Paul Tomaszewski
Paul Tomaszewski is a science & tech writer as well as a programmer and entrepreneur. He is the founder and editor-in-chief of CosmoBC. He has a degree in computer science from John Abbott College, a bachelor's degree in technology from the Memorial University of Newfoundland, and completed some business and economics classes at Concordia University in Montreal. While in college he was the vice-president of the Astronomy Club. In his spare time he is an amateur astronomer and enjoys reading or watching science-fiction. You can follow him on LinkedIn and Twitter.
2 Comments
Nimrod
Hi and thanks for the post.
Billy AKA Action Geek
Yeah it does sound a little science-fictionish (is that a word?) but hey, so does “All European airports closed due to volcanic ash cloud”!
NASA does already have a tracking program known as NEAT (Near Earth Asteroid Tracking) but it was cancelled in 2007… maybe it should be started again!?