Graphic and research by Paul Chodas, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Researchers have identified more than 2,300 asteroids and comets that are big enough to cause considerable damage on Earth and could possibly hit us. These “potentially hazardous objects” look ominous on the flat plot here, but because they travel in three-dimensional orbits, the perfect timing needed to intersect Earth makes the likelihood of collision remote. The symbol sizes shown also deceive; each object is many thousands of times as small as Earth.
NASA is concerned nonetheless. Scientists estimate that they have found fewer than 1 percent of the projectiles. “We are discovering them at a rapid clip, but the population is very large,” says Donald K. Yeomans, manager of the Near Earth Object Program Office at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. A NASA advisory group says that for $250 million to $300 million annually over 10 years, the space agency could inventory the objects and develop and test technologies that could alter a worrisome asteroid’s trajectory. One option: ram it with a massive spacecraft to knock it off course. —Mark Fischetti
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23 Comments
Add CommentI was unaware that using graphics in science was to succumb to misleading and sensational media tactics to convey a message. A message of a pressing need to not only find but develop ways to prevent a catastrophe. Not to mention the trouble arising from creating a NEO defense for all nations of the world and the split of the cost and maintenance of such a system. The further I think on this the larger the breadth of the issue at hand the more I am troubled about how such a complicated issue cannot be convincing to support it be brought about merely by a 2-D picture with the asteroids in a 3-D space.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAll I want to say with this is a plea for reason and logical discussion and not boil it down to "Wow that looks like a lot of stuff, we better do something about it."
Let's not forget, an "asteroid protection" strategy can be very similar to an "asteroid mining" strategy. The issue of NEOs could be turned into an opportunity for harvesting abundant raw materials for a true push into space; and hopefuly spread ourselves so that a single impact event won't be enough to wipe all traces of our existence...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy, my... Yoshisummons, don't get your underwear in a crimp, now, it only looks that way for those who didn't actually read the caption.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGoodness, in one of those seemingly serendipidous events dictated by the laws of random statistics, just as NASA and JPL are facing layoffs due to scale-backs of the manned-space program, we notice that millions of asteroids might land our heads....UNLESS we hire back all those layoffs.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMaybe NASA could figure out how to block the commercial advertisers' postings from SA blogs in return for SA posting articles justifying NASA funding.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhile NASA sees its mission as including the education of next generation potential employees, I'm not sure why they have so many cool tools for web users to play with. Does providing application developers and server capacity to support these frivolous functions further the mission to detect asteroid collisions?
I'm just wondering where all the tax money goes. Why can't the IRS supply free online tax submission - no why not provide a tax credit, since it reduces IRS processing costs? Put some of those redundant NASA engineers on it!
I suspect that the numbers quoted are grossly underestimated, as is usual for such proposals. If the true numbers were to come out, it would definitely not get funded until way too late.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhether in 2-D or in 3-D there are many objects to be found and tracked. In addition, each of these tracks will not only be influenced by large planetary bodies in more or less predictable ways, but will also be influenced by the interactions of the various objects themselves, both with small gravitational forces, any magnetic forces and with collisions between them.
The "ram a massive spacecraft" solution would only work if we detect the problem way in advance. It would be like trying to move Mount Everest with a very large boulder thrown from a catapult. It won't do much. The other "typical" sci-fi solutions of using the entire world arsenal of atomic weapons would have a little more effect, but again not much, unless it is a very small object or something that isn't very dense (in which case we don't need to worry anyway). In any case, making very small changes very early on is still the best solution, but for that to occur, we have to know very far in advance.
A threat is sometimes an opportunity.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFrom the book, Mining the Sky by John S. Lewis ISBN 0-201-32819-4:
"As an example of the magnitude and economic value of space resources, we shall assay the smallest known M asteroid and account for its market value. That distinction belongs to the NEA known as 3554 Amun. Amun is only two kilometers in diameter, the size of a typical open-pit mine on Earth, with a mass of thirty billion (3 X 10 ^10) tons. Assuming a typical iron meteorite composition, the iron and nickel in Amun have a market value of about $8,000 billion. The cobolt content adds another$6,000 billion, and the platinum-group metals (platinum, osmium, iridium, palladium, and so on) add another $6,000 billion. Not counting the value of its major nonmetallic components (such as carbon, nitrogen, sulfur, and phosphorus) and its minor and trace nonmetallic components (such as germanium, gallium, arsenic, and antimony), the total market value of Amun in Earth's metals market is $20,000 billion. Since it is already located in space, it represents an asset that would cost $300,000,000 billion. That is roughly equivalent to the gross global product of Earth for the next thirty thousand years. Therefore, this one small asteroid would provide us with the potential for a space program tens of thousands of times larger in scale than anything we could afford without the use of space resources --- indeed, far greater than Earth's entire economy."
I would think that if businessmen knew of this value, they would figure out a way to, not blow it up or such, but capture it in an orbit around the Earth and use it's economic and space value.
What do you think?
The problem here, like the similar problem concerning the heating of the Earth, is that some people just don't want to hear about global threats, so they use all kinds of strategies to dismiss those who do research in such fields. The thing is this – a naive induction from the world as we have experienced it as children is not a reliable indicator. In the fifties we believed the world would perennially be like it was in the fifties. Our parents did so especially. We have, next, to accept that the universe does not take care of us. So – we have to do it ourselves. I'd rather pay, through taxes for example, a number of scientists to check out various presumably unlikely dangers – these people are taken as a whole rather cheap – than to find some global nemesis hit me in the head, taking me by total surprise, and to endanger the life of my own child, and more. The situation is much like that of the recent flu epidemic. If the nations had not been very careful and put a lot of money into vaccinating large populations, and given that the worst scenario had become real, they would have been severely accused of negligence. Now, when humanity did not succumb, as in the classic story by Jack London, self-appointedly wise people come to the surface as if they knew the outcome all along. If you look at the SciAm picture above you reach the same conclusion – there are risks, although they are small. So why not give some money to those, including all those diligent so called amateur astronomers, who watch the skies, both because they love to do that and to detect dangers to us all? My suggestion is that each nation should present an annual award to that amateur astronomer, who manages to locate a new threat to humankind, whether that threat is imminent or not. If two-three manage the same, they should share the award. Our main job is to save the Earth and Mankind. There are many ways to do that. Stop throwing bombs is one. Preserve our cultures another. Make music, like. Write books. Study history. Be a philosopher. Check out the skies a fourth. For without the Earth what are we? If you disagree. I love you anyway, although I may think you are a bit strange. Please note! No, I am not an amateur astronomer. I just wish. I have no remunerative interests embedded here. No one supports me, though though wish they did. Happy New Year!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHi again, I only wish to point out that in my previous comments a number of rather common signs have been left to make certain statements incoherent. It seems that the otherwise excellent Sci Am has hired a firm which uses PC-oriented software dating from 1968 to make this website. So please, on reading feel free to interpolate various signs common in literature wherever you feel like it will help you to read my text. They mainly have to do with pauses, interpolations and the like. Remember that I love you.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am sure we will be OK in Australia. I've seen the movies and these sort of things only impact USA.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thissounds short sighted to me Astronerd. Adding a body of unknown mass to our gravitational sphere of influence, would be highly complicated. We struggle to keep satellites from falling out of the sky with their tiny mass. How would we calculate the exact orbital speed required for the complex geometry and unknown density profile of an asteroid. Could we possibly have an adverse affect on the ocean tides with such a body in orbit? What would happen to the orbit of the moon
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI assume that "mining" an asteroid involves bringing a large portion of the 20 Trillion dollars worth of minerals back to the surface of the earth. What will this do over time to the mass of the earth and it's orbit around the sun? How many asteroids will we mine over time?
As with all economic rationalisation, your argument fails to take into account the cost of the unintended effects of your economic activity. I for one value this planet a little more highly than any possitive affects that may come from laso-ing an asteroid and tethering it to our planet.
How difficult can it be (to avoid asteroid disaster)? Firs we send spacecrafts to those bodies that are a treath - with miners onboard who harvest minerals, and so on from the heavenly bodies and send them back to earth. During this digging and drilling, what is useless is placed outside the asteroid. During this mining the asteroid gets less heavy w/o any extra cost or effort = it is prepaired for what is to come later for free!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen everything valuable is taken the we simply put the carbage we placed outside the asteroid in motion with a rocket... when this huge mass hits the asteroid which now is as empty inside as a ping-pong ball, well you can imagine what happens.
If I'm running across a field and you fire a handgun at me from a distance, the odds are pretty slim it will hit me.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf I'm running across a field and spray machine gun bullets in my direction, don't the odds increase exponentially that I will take a bullet?
Seems the more objects they discover, the greater the odds increase exponentially of Earth taking a hit.
astronerd...just posted something yesterday like you stated...getting material into orbit is very expensive...if we can mine these near earth objects and build ships/parts/satellites..etc.. it would be much cheaper than 10k a pound to get it up there...plus the future danger is removed....
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOoooooo, I smell GRANT MONEY.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat's a lot of broken rock out there, lumps of planets maybe? Before we attach too much 'gravity' to the situation, perhaps we should re-assess our picture of how the solar system works. Every object in space must possess an electrical potential. For a start we are all immersed in a flow of accelerating electrical particles, mostly emitted by the Sun. In my book that's pretty close to electric current- albeit a 3D version of what flows around out power grids.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe p.d. of any object sets its relative potential to its neighbours. As electrified space = weak plasma then all the rules of 'double layers' apply, just as in Langmuir's lab experiments. In other words a plasma insulating 'cushion' exists around us, so in addition to atmospheric protection we also have a plasma 'shield'. That's probable why the Tunguska "30metre asteroid" never made it to ground. It's effects were spectacular but not too catastrophic?
Any attempts to land on asteroids will also entail electrical discharge, as seen in the Tempel 1 flashes. So watch your step bold geologists!
A thoughtful statistic: when the Chicxulub asteriod's leading edge impacted the water off of Yucatan, its other end was at 35,000 feet.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisActually what we would need to do is put it into a trailing position. Instead of being in orbit we would just park it in the same orbit as the Earth but a million or two miles behind us in the orbital path. This would give us reaction time if something went wrong. We would have to have engines there to accelerate or decelerate as needed to maintain positioning.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThen we could mine it and use the resources to produce habitat and shipping for further expansion. Limited amounts would be sent to Earth but only a small percentage for the purpose of offsetting cost and for strategic materials use. The rest would be used in space for expansion to the moon and Mars.
Perhaps in this case the best advice to follow is : "Be armed rather by resignation than foreknowledge".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1.The point of the image was to show how it could look bad one way, but it actually isn't. They showed you an image that could be used to scare you into thinking something, but dismiss the manufactured fear and replace it with knowledge. There is over 2 million asteroids and we know the orbital path of less than 1%. This last summer two asteroids passed between the earth and the moon, described as threading a cosmic string through the eye hole of a needle, we were taken by surprise when these passed by with out us knowing they were on the way. They were separate occasions during the summer.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this2. NASA's budget, 12.5 cents/% of each federal tax dollar. The military, 49.5 cents/% of each fed tax dollar. 13.5 cents of that is allocated to military loans, debts and other occurring obligations,36 cents of each tax dollar goes towards new projects and spending. Also, it's between 8 and 9.5 cents of each federal tax dollar spent that goes towards public schools.
3. The biggest steps NASA has taken is with their Earth science studies, http://www.nasa.gov/missions/current/index.html Those are the current missions of NASA, all of them aiming to better understand how our earth is working. Like the magnetosphere reversing polarity which will leave us with out a large element of our protection from solar radiation. Not the end of the world, increased risks of cancer and gene mutation, it happens every 750k years give or take. For 1,500 years will be without an intact magnetosphere, we already have 1 million square miles of unprotected area to the right of south america. The Hubble telescope has to shut down as do other instruments satellites that pass over this area to prevent internal damage and possible incapacitation.
What is not known to you in your world does not exist. We must all treat each thought like a rubix cube, you may see all blue onside and it makes sense to you but the rest is out of order. Not that you or anyone will have all the colors facing their proper sides at once, but if complete and fully understand onside, you can move on to the next. Perfect practice makes perfect.
The question we should all be asking is this : As we have no way of stopping an asteroid colliding with the earth, what sort of 'noah's ark' shelters can we construct to save earth's biodiversity, to save at least a small population of survivors. A huge asteroid skimmed the atmosphere above central France in august 1975. If it had been 50 miles lower, we would all have fried!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe asteroid is pretty small compared to the Earth. A 1 cubic km space rock(civilisation killer) would be about 10 to the minus 15th the mass of the Earth, so if we mine it and bring it down, it will have almost no impact on the mass and orbit of the Earth. It would take 20 billion years of bringing down one of these every day to up the mass of the earth by 1%.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRelax.
ygsdrasil, you are so right! Thank you for the laugh-out-loud comment.
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