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Scientist: Threat of Asteroid Impact Being Ignored
By Patricia Reaney
Reuters
posted: 02:00 pm ET
06 September 2001
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asteroid_british_010906 GLASGOW, Scotland (Reuters) - Britain and other nations are not doing enough to track asteroids or other near-Earth objects which could cause a catastrophe if one collided with the Earth, a British physicist said Thursday. A massive asteroid that hit Mexico is blamed for the demise of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Duncan Steel, of the University of Salford in northwest England, said humans could be facing a similar calamity. ``We need to know more about our enemy,'' Steel told a science conference. Scientists are tracking large near-Earth objects which would cause the most damage and kill millions. The likelihood of a large asteroid hitting the Earth is one in 100,000. The United States, Italy, France, Germany and Japan have programs looking into the threat of collisions with near-Earth objects and how to deal with them. Experts at Italy's University of Pisa also produce a regularly updated list of large space objects and the probabilities of collisions. But Steel argues that Britain and other nations are ignoring the threat and also not funding research into the quest for smaller space objects which would cause less damage but have a higher risk of colliding with the Earth. ``Such cosmic calamities pose a surprising yet significant danger to us all,'' he told the Britain Association science conference. ``There is no coordinated program in the Southern Hemisphere or worldwide,'' Steel added. Hollywood films such as ``Armageddon'' and ``Deep Impact'' have raised public awareness of the threat, but Steel believes some governments are not putting money into the search for smaller near-Earth objects because it does not win votes. No one has been killed by an asteroid or comet, he added, so people do not take the threat seriously. ``I would challenge anyone who could find a project with a better cost/benefit ratio,'' he added. As an example of what could happen, Steel cited the case of Tunguska in Siberia. Huge areas of forests were flattened when an asteroid exploded 6.2 miles over the region with the force of a 10-megaton hydrogen bomb impact in 1908.
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