NASA Works to Save Us from Deadly Asteroid Impact Michael Dello-Iacovo - CatchNews
go to original September 13, 2016

NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office is working to keep Earth safe from asteroids and other hazards that come from deep space. (ScienceAtNASA)

Sixty-five million years ago, disaster struck the Earth. An asteroid or comet around 10km in diameter slammed into what is now the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. While the idea was ridiculed at first, this event is now widely believed to be the reason the dinosaurs became extinct.

This realization led to a rallying of scientists and engineers around the world to detect and monitor the asteroids in the heavens, and if need be, to be prepared to deflect one from hitting us.

Today, we have a Planetary Defense Coordination Office under NASA whose sole mission is to prepare us for this unlikely but devastating possibility.

It is believed that we have found all of the asteroids the size of that which killed the dinosaurs (at least those near Earth). But there are many smaller asteroids that can still do a lot of damage which are undetected.

...Despite being so rare, if a large asteroid did hit Earth, it would cause extraordinary damage. In fact, you're more likely to be killed by an asteroid than die in a shark attack.

We know about a number of recent asteroid impacts, but we're still discovering more in the geological record. Currently it's estimated that NEOs which can cause global ecological effects occur around once every 500,000 years.

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