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• The Sky Is Falling - The odds that a potentially devastating space rock will hit Earth this century may be as high as one in 10. So why isn’t NASA trying harder to prevent catastrophe?

  Breakthrough ideas have a way of seeming obvious in retro­spect, and about a decade ago, a Columbia University geophysicist named Dallas Abbott had a breakthrough idea. She had been pondering the craters left by comets and asteroids that smashed into Read More...
  Posted Sunday, May 18, 2008 1:08 PM by clementlawyer / 0 Comments

  Tags: Existential risk, Existential risks, Extinction, Apocalypse, Asteroids

• Deep Impact

  According to a new report from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, some 100,000 asteroids and comets routinely pass between the Sun and the Earth's orbit. About 20,000 of these orbit close enough to us that they could one day hit the E... Read more
  Posted Tuesday, April 03, 2007 1:18 AM from KurzweilAI.net Accelerating Intelligence News / 0 Comments

  Tags: Asteroids, Near-Earth Objects

• Could lasers zap away dangerous asteroids?

  Lasers may be able to detect asteroids from 10 times farther away than current radar observatories, and deflect them away from Earth, too.... Read more
  Posted Monday, March 19, 2007 10:18 PM from KurzweilAI.net Accelerating Intelligence News / 1 Comments

  Tags: Asteroids, Near-Earth Objects, Lasers

• The sky is falling, really

  Two potential deflection techniques for asteroids appear to work nicely together. First we would deflect the asteroid with kinetic impact from a missile (that is, running into it); then we would use the slight pull of a "gravity tractor" — a... Read more
  Posted Monday, March 19, 2007 12:26 AM from KurzweilAI.net Accelerating Intelligence News / 0 Comments

  Tags: Asteroids, Near-Earth Objects

• Tracking of Killer Asteroids Runs Low on Money and Short on Time

  NASA can find and track most of the nearby asteroids that could hit and damage the Earth, but there is not enough money in its budget to finish the project within a 15-year deadline mandated by Congress. There are about 20,000 asteroids and comets... Read more
  Posted Monday, March 12, 2007 12:38 AM from KurzweilAI.net Accelerating Intelligence News / 1 Comments

  Tags: Existential risks, Asteroids, NASA, Near-Earth Objects

• NASA can't pay for killer asteroid hunt

  NASA officials say the space agency is capable of finding nearly all the asteroids that might pose a devastating hit to Earth, but there isn't enough money to pay for the task so it won't get done. The cost to find at least 90 percent of the 20,00... Read more
  Posted Tuesday, March 06, 2007 8:58 PM from KurzweilAI.net Accelerating Intelligence News / 1 Comments

  Tags: Existential risks, Asteroids, NASA, Near-Earth Objects

• Agenda Set For Upcoming Planetary Defense Conference

  The second Planetary Defense Conference will bring together scientists and engineers from the international space community on March 5 - 8 in Washington DC to assess our ability to discover and track near-Earth objects and deflect an asteroid or come... Read more
  Posted Sunday, February 25, 2007 8:33 PM from KurzweilAI.net Accelerating Intelligence News / 0 Comments

  Tags: Existential risks, Asteroids, Near-Earth Objects

• Asteroid threat demands response, experts warn

  Aasteroid Apophis, which researchers now say has a 1 in 45,000 chance of hitting Earth on 13 April 2036. Calculations show it would strike somewhere along a narrow track that stretches eastward from Siberia to the west coast of Africa. The Associa... Read more
  Posted Sunday, February 18, 2007 8:14 PM from KurzweilAI.net Accelerating Intelligence News / 0 Comments

  Tags: Existential risk, Asteroids

• NASA Studies Manned Asteroid Mission

  NASA is appraising a human mission to a near-Earth asteroid, gauging the scientific merit of the endeavor while testing out spacecraft gear, as well as mastering techniques that could prove useful if a space rock ever took aim for our planet.... Read more
  Posted Sunday, November 19, 2006 10:01 PM from KurzweilAI.net Accelerating Intelligence News / 0 Comments

  Tags: Asteroids, Space exploration