nydailynews.com) - A senior scientist affiliated with NASA says it's only a matter of time before an asteroid or comet will bring large-scale devastation to Earth — and humans aren't prepared.
Dr. Joseph Nuth of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center presented his research during the American Geophysical Union's 49th annual meeting, held this week in San Francisco.
"The biggest problem, basically, is there's not a hell of a lot we can do about it at the moment," Nuth said, according to the Guardian.
Nuth believes that Earth is overdue for an "extinction-level" cosmic event.
During his presentation, Nuth cited a "close encounter" with a comet in 1996, and again in 2014, when a wayward comet traveled within "cosmic spitting distance of Mars."
The 2014 comet was discovered 22 months ahead of its arrival, Nuth said.
"If you look at the schedule for high-reliability spacecraft and launching them, it takes five years to launch a spacecraft. We had 22 months of total warning," he said, according to the Guardian.
Nuth wants NASA to build an interceptor rocket — a way to ensure that an asteroid or comet doesn't crash into Earth.
Though comets or asteroids large enough to cause to more than a mark in the Earth's atmosphere are typically rare, NASA estimates that 90% or more of near-Earth objects are larger than a kilometer — the right size to cause calamity on the planet.
Officials with NASA and the Federal Emergency Management Agency in October performed a simulation of what might happen if a large asteroid were to hit Los Angeles.
The simulation, which included a 330-foot asteroid, featured an explosion that could level cities and result in mass casualties.
"It's not a matter of if, but when, we will deal with such a situation," said Thomas Zurbuchen, the Associate Administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate, in a post-simulation statement. (Source)
No comments:
Post a Comment