Of interest, regarding Asteroids – and imminent Asteroid Day….
NEWSWEEK
We Can Save Ourselves From Earth-Killing Asteroids, but Someone Has to Pay
11 June 2015 by Nina Burleigh
EXTRACT:
The public will also be hearing more about asteroids later this month, when a motley crew of astronomers, physicists, rock stars and filmmakers get behind what’s being billed as the world’s first “Asteroid Day,” on June 30. The annual event’s date was selected because on June 30, 1908, an asteroid flattened thousands of square miles of remote Siberian forest, in what’s known as the Tunguska event.
The organizers and participants include Queen guitarist and astrophysicist Brian May, U.K. Astronomer Royal Lord Martin Rees, American scientist Bill Nye and astronauts Lu and Schweickart. Events are planned in cities around the world, and live presentations will be beamed from London and San Francisco. The Asteroid Day organizers are also circulating an online petition called “The 100X Declaration” calling for a hundredfold increase in the mapping and tracking of asteroids.
“There are a million asteroids in our solar system that have the potential to strike Earth and destroy a city, yet we have discovered less than 10,000—just one percent—of them,” the document states. ”We have the technology to change that situation.”