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Funding Woes Halt Plans to Search Out Potential “Killer†Asteroids
6 March, 2007A giant rock, perhaps half a mile in diameter, may be hurtling towards us this very minute through the emptiness of space. If it strikes the Earth, or blows up in the atmosphere, the explosion would be equivalent to that of 100 million tons of TNT, twice as powerful as the largest nuclear bomb ever detonated. If it struck the United States, it could wipe out a small state. But chances are, we will never see it coming.
This, explained Simon Worden, director of NASA Ames research center, is because scientists have not been given the funds to look for these Near Earth Objects (NEOs) that might be heading our way. “We know what to do,†he said; “we just don’t have the money.
The objects in question are space rocks with a diameter greater than 460 feet (140 meters), and scientists estimate that there are 20,000 of these that could potentially collide with Earth. In 2005 Congress asked NASA to come up with a plan to track most killer asteroids, and propose how to deflect one if it is headed for a catastrophic collision. Although NASA scientists believe they could find 90% of these objects by the year 2020, funding for the search has been hard to come by.