The White House Has Released A Plan To Deal With An Asteroid Impact

[Judi Lynn]

By Jonathan O'Callaghan
06/01/2017, 14:51

One day, we are probably going to be faced with a killer asteroid heading our way, threatening to cause major damage to the planet. The odds just aren’t in our favor.

To prepare for such a day, the White House released its Near-Earth Object Preparedness Strategy on December 30, 2016. It details how to stop such a disaster ever occurring, and how to act if worst comes to worst, and we are hit by a large asteroid.

Such events are not unprecedented. Of course, the dinosaurs were wiped out by an asteroid 10 kilometers (6 miles) wide, but many smaller ones hit Earth every day. Most go unnoticed, but some – like the Chelyabinsk meteor over Russia in 2013 – can cause considerable damage.

There are several institutions set up to track these asteroids – such as NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO) – but most agree we are not doing enough. We know of thousands of near-Earth asteroids, but more than two-thirds remain undetected.

More:
http://www.iflscience.com/space/the-white-house-has-released-a-plan-to-deal-with-an-asteroid-impact/

[Warpy]

1. We'll never see the one that gets us

and frankly, I'm more worried about another round of serious vulcanism, and I'm not terribly worried about that.

[Sancho]

2. We know what to do...we've seen the movie