PLEASE NOTE:
*
CCNet 79/2002 - 8 July 2002
----------------------------
"Only two days before a Space Roundtable at the United
States Senate
will address "The Asteroid Threat", an atmospheric
impact on July 4
(Independence Day) has set off a timely reminder that the impact
hazard is not limited to large objects. Last Thursday, Israeli
officials
reported that a missile may have exploded a few miles from an
EL-AL plane
flying over the Ukraine. Over the weekend, however, both the
Ukrainian
Defense Ministry and Ukraine's National Space Agency indicated
that a
meteor rather than a terrorist attack may have been the cause of
the
atmospheric fireball explosion.... The latest incident should
serve as a
catalyst to begin addressing the political, economic and security
risks due
to smaller NEOs, a perpetual threat that has been neglected for
far too
long."
--Benny Peiser, 8 July 2002
(1) ATMOSPHERIC EXPLOSION SETS OFF TIMELY REMINDER TO ADDRESS
SMALL IMPACT
HAZARD
Benny Peiser <b.j.peiser@livjm.ac.uk>
(2) 'MISSILE ATTACK' MAY HAVE BEEN ATMOSPHERIC IMPACT
CNN, 6 July 2002
(3) METEOR, NOT TERRORISM, MAY HAVE CAUSED ISRAELI PLANE ALERT
BBC News Online, 6 July 2002
(4) SENATE SPACE ROUNDTABLE ON ASTEROID CLOSE CALLS
http://www.spaceref.com/calendar/calendar.html?pid=1558
(5) ASTRONOMERS FEAR AN MIDDLE EAST IMPACT EVENT COULD
PRECIPITATE NUCLEAR
EXCHANGE
YOWUSA, November 2001
(6) TIMELY REMINDER: "FIRST STRIKE OR ASTEROID IMPACT?"
Space.com, 6 June 2002
(7) HISTORICAL RECORDS OF IMPACT FATALITIES
Michael Paine <mpaine@tpg.com.au>
(8) IMPACT-INDUCED RINGS
Peter Haines <Peter.Haines@utas.edu.au>
=================
(1) ATMOSPHERIC EXPLOSION SETS OFF TIMELY REMINDER TO ADDRESS
SMALL IMPACT
HAZARD
>From Benny Peiser <b.j.peiser@livjm.ac.uk>
Only two days before a Space Roundtable at the United States
Senate will
address "The Asteroid Threat", an atmospheric impact on
July 4 (Independence
Day) has set off a timely reminder that the impact hazard is not
limited to
large objects.
Last Thursday, Israeli officials reported that a missile may have
exploded a
few miles from an EL-AL plane flying over the Ukraine. The alarm
was given
added credibility as pilots of two other planes flying over the
same region
also reported seeing a fireball at the same time that resembled a
missile
explosion. Given the current war on terrorism, given that an
Israeli
passenger plane was shot down by a Ukranian missile last year
killing 78
people, given the symbolic date of the incident and the fact that
an
Egyptian immigrant killed 2 people at an El-Al ticket-counter in
a terrorist
attack in LA on the same day, it seemed not too far-fetched to
conjecture
that the Ukranian fireball was due to another missile attack.
Over the weekend, however, both the Ukrainian Defense Ministry
and Ukraine's
National Space Agency indicated that a meteor rather than a
terrorist attack
may have been the cause of the atmospheric fireball explosion.
Whatever the
final result of the investigations may confirm, it is evident
that a
meteoric fireball can easily be misjudged as a terrorist attack -
in bigger
cases even as a nuclear first strike.
A number of NEO researchers (including myself) have become
increasingly
concerned about the largely neglected risks of small impacts on
global
security and economic and political stability (see interviews
with Brian
Marsden and Pete Worden attached below). In the wake of September
11, these
concerns have focused primarily on small, Tunguska-sized impacts
and their
aptitude for being mixed up as nuclear first strikes. The latest
incident
shows unmistakably that even smaller atmospheric impacts (not to
mention the
probability that a plane, one day, may be brought down by a
meteor strike).
The latest incident should serve as a catalyst to begin
addressing the
political, economic and security risks due to small impacts, a
perpetual
threat that has been neglected for far too long.
Benny Peiser
CCNet Moderator
Liverpool John Moores University
=========
(2) 'MISSILE ATTACK' MAY HAVE BEEN ATMOSPHERIC IMPACT
>From CNN, 6 July 2002
http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/meast/07/06/ukraine.israeliplane.ap/index.html
Meteor may have alarmed Israeli pilot
KIEV, Ukraine (AP) -- A meteor may have caused the flash that
alarmed an
Israeli pilot flying over Ukraine, Ukrainian officials said
Saturday,
insisting it was not a missile.
An El Al pilot reported seeing a missile fired from the ground
over central
Ukraine during a Tel Aviv-Moscow flight on Thursday night.
Israeli officials
said the missile exploded a few miles from the plane.
Pilots of two other planes flying over the Dnipropetrovsk region
reported
seeing a big blue fireball that resembled a missile explosion at
the same
time, the ITAR-Tass and Interfax news agencies cited Ukrainian
aviation
officials as saying Saturday.
The incident was a sensitive issue in the Ukraine because in
October, an
errant missile fired from a Ukrainian military base shot down a
Russian
plane, killing all 78 people on board, most of them immigrants to
Israel.
On Saturday, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry issued a statement
saying that
no missiles had been fired in the area that night and that the
pilots may
have witnessed a meteor entering the Earth's atmosphere.
Officials from Ukraine's National Space Agency also suggested a
meteor could
have been the culprit, as did Yaroslav Skalko, deputy chairman of
Ukraine's
civil aviation department, ITAR-Tass and Interfax reported.
"The airplane crews who saw over Ukrainian territory on July
4 a flash that
resembled a missile explosion were observing phenomena of
unidentified
origin not related to the activities of the Ukrainian armed
forces," the
Defense Ministry statement said.
The ministry said the stocks of missiles and other long-range
ammunition
have been inspected and nothing is missing, according to
ITAR-Tass and
Interfax.
Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma said Friday that no
missile-firing
exercises had been held in Ukraine since the October crash.
Israeli officials were especially concerned about the incident
because it
came the same day that an Egyptian immigrant shot and killed two
people at
the El Al's ticket counter at Los Angeles International Airport.
Copyright 2002 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
=============
(3) METEOR, NOT TERRORISM, MAY HAVE CAUSED ISRAELI PLANE ALERT
>From BBC News Online, 6 July 2002
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/europe/newsid_2107000/2107710.stm
'Meteor' caused Israeli plane alert
Ukrainian officials say the "strong flash" reported by
the pilot of an
Israeli plane over Ukraine on Thursday was probably caused by a
meteor
entering the atmosphere.
In a statement on Saturday, the Ukrainian defence ministry said
no missiles
had been fired in the area at the time.
The pilot had reported seeing what he believed to have been a
missile
exploding in mid-air at a distance from his aircraft.
Last year, 78 people died when a Russian airliner flying from
Israel was hit
over Ukraine by what was believed to have been a stray missile
fired during
a military exercise.
The Israeli Government said the El Al plane was never in danger
during the
latest incident.
Flash
"Specialists with the Ukraine Space Agency have concluded
that it was
probably a light phenomenon resulting from a meteor's entry into
the earth's
atmosphere," Ukraine defence ministry spokesman Kostyantyn
Khivreno told AFP
news agency.
Mr Kvirenko said the Ukrainian forces had "nothing to do
with this".
"We have checked all our missiles, and I can tell you they
are all there,"
the AFP quoted him as saying.
"The airplane crews who saw over Ukrainian territory on July
4 a flash that
resembled a missile explosion were observing phenomena of
unidentified
origin not related to the activities of the Ukrainian armed
forces," the
statement said.
Thursday night's reported incident occurred during a regular El
Al flight
from Tel Aviv to Moscow.
The pilot saw a "strong flash" at a distance while
flying over
Dnipropetrovsk in Ukraine, El Al said.
A Russian pilot, flying a Urals Airlines plane, told Ukrainian
air traffic
controllers that he had also seen a strong flash, according to
AFP news
agency.
'Absurd'
But Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma said the suggestion that
the incident
involved a Ukrainian missile was "absurd".
A Ukrainian missile caused last year's plane crash
"After last year's unfortunate incident, firing missiles is
totally banned
in Ukraine," he said.
In October last year, a Tu-154 plane operated by Sibir airlines
flying from
Tel Aviv to Novosibirsk in Siberia exploded in mid-air over
Ukraine, before
crashing into the Black Sea.
All those on board - most of them Israelis - were killed.
After repeated denials, the Ukrainian defence ministry conceded
that one of
its ground-to-air missiles had brought the aircraft down.
Copyright 2002, BBC
===================
(4) SENATE SPACE ROUNDTABLE ON ASTEROID CLOSE CALLS
http://www.spaceref.com/calendar/calendar.html?pid=1558
ProSpace, in conjunction with Space Frontier Foundation, is
pleased to
announce the ninth in our series of Space Roundtables at the
United States
Senate. Titled "The Asteroid Threat: Identification and
Mitigation
Strategies", this program will explore a range of ideas and
information
regarding the asteroids and other objects that cross the earth's
orbit, what
we are doing to find and track them and what we could be doing to
protect
the earth from a devastating impact.
The program will be held on Wednesday, July 10th at 1:00pm in
room 192 of
the Dirksen Senate Office Building. To attend, please RSVP to:
prospace@prospace.org
Include your name, affiliation and telephone number.
You may be aware of the several close passes we have seen this
year by large
asteroids. The last such object, classified "2002MN",
passed within 75,000
miles of the earth at a speed of 23,000 miles per hours just over
one week
ago.
This object was approximately 70-100 meters in diameter, making
it similar
in size to an object that hit the Tunguska region of Siberia in
1908. That
impact resulted in a blast equivalent to 10-15 megatons, leaving
an area of
devastation that would cover two-thirds of Rhode Island.
While the idea of such an occurrence has been the stuff of
science fiction,
events such as Tunguska and our recent close calls dictate we
take a hard
look at the science facts. The experts we are gathering for our
event will
present detailed information on search efforts, warning systems,
possible
diversion scenarios and the overall probabilities that we will
experience
such an event.
Our panelists for the program include:
Brig. Gen. Simon P. Worden, USAF
US Space Command
Dr. Colleen Hartman
NASA
Dr. Thomas Morgan
NASA
Dr. Brian Marsden
Minor Planet Center
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Evan Seamone
University of Iowa College of Law
Dr. Lee Valentine
Space Studies Institute
Rick Tumlinson
FINDS
Rich Godwin
The Watch
You are cordially invited to attend the program, as well as the
buffet lunch
that will precede it. Simply RSVP via email at: prospace@prospace.org
When
RSVP'ing, please provide your name, affiliation and your phone
number.
See you at the Roundtable!
Regards,
Marc Schlather
Executive Director
The Space Roundtable
Theme Near Earth Asteroid Threat Date Wednesday, July 10, 2002
Location Room
192 Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, DC, US Web
Address
http://www.prospace.org
Contact prospace@prospace.org
=============
(5) ASTRONOMERS FEAR AN MIDDLE EAST IMPACT EVENT COULD
PRECIPITATE NUCLEAR
EXCHANGE
>From YOWUSA, November 2001
http://www.yowusa.com/Archive/November2001/ME_impactor1/me_impactor1.htm
Exclusive YOWUSA Interview With Dr. Brian Marsden, Associate
Director of the
Smithsonian Astrophysics Observatories Reveals a New and
Frightening
Post-911 National Security Risk
YOWUSA.COM, November 10, 2001
Marshall Masters
During a joint news conference with French President Jacques
Chirac last
Tuesday, President Bush warned the world of the specter of a
nuclear
catastrophe as a result of Osama bin Laden's likely acquisition
of nuclear
weapons from maniacs like Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein
Further, The
Sunday Telegraph (London) just published an article regarding new
evidence
that Iraq was struck 4000 years ago by a 150-meter meteorite
which begs the
question: Should an unexpected meteorite impact event happen in
the Middle
East today, could it trigger a nuclear exchange given the present
instability in the region? According to Astronomer Dr.
Brian Marsden, it
could, and that our chance of detecting a 150-meter meteorite
prior to
impact in a region like the Middle East is "somewhere
between none and dumb
luck."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
Interview with Dr. Brian Marsden
In this November 6, 2001 telephone interview between Marshall
Masters of
YOWUSA and Dr. Brian Marsden, Associate Director of the
Smithsonian
Astrophysical Observatory, the possibility that an unforeseen
impact event
could be used a pretext by international terrorists to start a
global
nuclear holocaust was examined.
MARSHALL MASTERS: President Bush has just warned the world that
Osama bin
Laden is working to gather weapons of mass destruction including
biological,
chemical and nuclear devices. Also, we know that Iraqi dictator
Saddam
Hussein has revitalized his nuclear weapons program. Keeping this
in mind,
may I call your attention to an article in the published in the
Sunday
Telegraph of London last Sunday. It suggests that an impact event
in
Northern Iraq, wrecked the ME civilization some 4,0000 years ago
in the area
of Mesopotamia. Dr. Marsden, if such an impact event were to
occur in the
same area of the world today and without prior notice, could it
trigger a
regional or global nuclear exchange?
BRIAN MARSDEN: Yes, an unforeseen impact like the one mentioned
in The
Sunday Telegraph article could certainly trigger a regional if
not global
nuclear exchange, and this new concern goes straight to the heart
of a
change that is taking place in the NEO (NEAR-EARTH-OBJECT)
community.
Prior to 911, the cause-and-effect relationship between an impact
event and
a global nuclear exchange was nothing more than a theoretical
debate.
However, since 911 it is no longer theoretical. It is now a
very real
threat for the very reasons that President Bush pointed out
during his press
conference with President Chirac.
MARSHALL MASTERS: If this is a new threat since the attack on
America, what
kind of impact event scenario could trigger as you say, "a
regional if not
global nuclear exchange."
BRIAN MARSDEN: Before delving into any one scenario, we must
first ask the
question: could they see it coming? if we suppose the Iraq
feature
mentioned in the Sunday telegraph was an impact event, the
impactor was
perhaps a 150-meter object. That would be very tough for
our best neo
search programs. As for Iraq, I do not ever recall seeing
an neo sighting
coming out of that country.
Granted, there are probably people in Iraq who have read books
and are
knowledgeable about meteor impacts, but the question of their
access to the
leadership of Iraq is debatable. Also, we simply do not know if
Saddam
Hussein will seek out their advice. Therefore, Iraq really has
little or no
practical ability to differentiate between an incoming NEO
impactor and a
nuclear-tipped ballistic missile.
This then brings us to two frightening possibilities for a
scenario. Saddam
could initiate a retaliatory nuclear or biochemical launch
against Israel
and NATO member states because of a sighting error or, he uses
the event as
a pretext to justify a first launch. Either way, a
great many people will
die awful deaths from both the impact event as well as the
ensuing war.
MARSHALL MASTERS: When you say that people will die from the
impact event as
well as a nuclear exchange, the issue of yield becomes relevant
given that
the same measure of force is used to determine the destructive
force of both
meteorites and nuclear warheads. For the sake of argument,
how large would
a meteorite need to duplicate the severe regional havoc as the
one that
struck Mesopotamia (Northern Iraq) 4,000 years ago?
BRIAN MARSDEN: as I say, it looks as though the meteorite might
have been
150 meters across--the size of one of the pyramids in Egypt,
say. An impact
like that corresponds to about 100 megatons of TNT, a little
larger than the
largest nuclear detonation to date. The 150 meters is a
guess based on the
size of the crater. Of course, the impactor could have been
somewhat larger
before it came into the earth's atmosphere.
MARSHALL MASTERS: Why do you say it is tough to detect 150-meter
objects
with our search programs?
BRIAN MARSDEN: NASA has set a goal to find 90% of the
kilometer-sized NEO's
by 2008. It did this because it was interested in finding
objects that, if
they impacted the earth, would directly affect everyone on the
planet. It
is only just becoming interested in objects half a kilometer
across or less,
but our current equipment is not optimized to find these smaller
objects.
Furthermore, the smaller the size the more numerous the objects,
which makes
it harder to catalog a significant fraction of them.
MARSHALL MASTERS: How is NASA in fact doing in terms of its goal?
BRIAN MARSDEN: NASA'S goal with regard to the kilometer-sized
NEO's is a
little over-optimistic. Even though we have found perhaps
50% of the
kilometer-sized NEO's (or, more correctly, near-earth asteroids),
it gets
progressively more difficult to find the remainder. After all, we
were
already 30% complete five years ago, and I doubt that we can be
more than
70% complete by 2008.
Furthermore, in setting the 90% goal, NASA was really thinking
only of
actual detection, and it made little or no provision for the task
of
determining the orbits of the objects found with sufficient
accuracy to say
for sure that some of them cannot hit us during the next century
or so.
Nevertheless, since impacts by kilometer-sized objects
statistically occur
at intervals of 100,000 years or more, the odds are better than a
thousand
to one that we shan't be hit by one, known or unknown, during the
next
century.
While being good odds, they are clearly not acceptable, given the
immensity
of the disaster if we just happen to be unlucky. But given
that we shall
surely be continuing to search and refine orbit computations for
kilometer-sized objects long after 2008, the chances will
increase, as time
goes by, that we shall indeed be able to recognize the next
kilometer-sized
impactor and the date it will hit at least decades ahead, and
that will
presumably be enough to send out missions to deflect it.
MARSHALL MASTERS: So you're saying the situation is acceptable
with regard
to kilometer-sized objects?
BRIAN MARSDEN: Actually, I think it basically is. There is the
problem of
the long-period comets, which are simply too far away and faint
to detect
more than a year or two before they could hit us. I think these
represent
less than 2% of the problem, but if the hope is actually to find
the comets
before they hit, we have to continue to search
indefinitely. The real
difficulty is whether with even two years' notice (and it might
be a lot
less), we could actually take evasive action.
MARSHALL MASTERS: And what about 150-meter asteroids like the one
that seems
to have hit Iraq 4,000 years ago?
BRIAN MARSDEN: Here the situation is very different. We currently
know at
most 2% of the population. True, we knew perhaps only 0.5% of
them five
years ago, but we've obviously got a very long way to go before
we'd be
likely to know the one that is next going to hit us.
Furthermore, that next
hit is likely to be quite soon. Statistically, a 150-meter object
hits the
earth every few thousand years, and if that one in Iraq was the
last one,
the next is just about due any day now.
MARSHALL MASTERS: Given that you feel we do not face an imminent
danger from
the Kilometer-wide NEO Earth crossers that has NASA's full
attention, you've
sure got me worried now about the 150-meter objects. If it is a
fact that we
are now in the statistical crosshairs of an impact event like the
one that
devastated Mesopotamia 4,000 years ago, I've got to ask:
Are we vulnerable
to an unforeseen impact event of this magnitude today because we
simply lack
the technology to track the150-meter NEO's?
BRIAN MARSDEN: No, we have the technology we need to find and
catalog these
objects available today. The reason it is sitting on the
shelf is that we
simply lack the political will to put it to work, because
politicians find
the costs to be unattractive.
Keep in mind that the funding set aside for attending to dangers
is
calculated on a cost-per-death basis. At some point, it simply
becomes
prudent from an accounting standpoint to let people die even
though their
deaths can be prevented.
I personally find this cost method analysis to be morally
repugnant. But it
is, you could say, the Golden Rule. He who has the gold makes the
rules. In
this case those who make the rules have set an arbitrary limit on
what they
are willing to spend and all we can do is to make what little
they give us
go as far as possible.
Perhaps the new world we live in since 911 will change all that.
One can at
least be hopeful and assume so. In any case, the new scenario
conceivably
affects everyone on the planet indirectly.
MARSHALL MASTERS: Assuming that the government's thinking has
changed, and
that our leadership is now viewing smaller impacts as a matter of
national
security and were suddenly willing to fund a search program for
150-meter
objects, what technology would you need to catalog these objects;
what would
it cost; and how soon could you have it up and running?
BRIAN MARSDEN: If national security were the primary
justification for this
level of effort, we would need to use build and deploy a suite of
advanced
special purpose 4- OR 5-meter telescopes in the Northern and
Southern
hemispheres, along with computer analysis support and adequate
24/7
staffing.
Off-hand the cost to build and deploy this system, not including
operational
costs, would be approximately 10 million dollars per telescope
and it could
take several years to make the full system operational. However,
this would,
after a few decades, give us a better than 50% chance of finding
potential
150-meter impactors, as opposed to the at best 2% chance we have
today.
Operating costs would likely be in excess of 10 million dollars
per year,
and there is a 1% chance the next 150-meter impactor will come,
unannounced,
during this time. Granted, a success rate of more than 90%
would therefore
be nice, but that would require extensive searches from space and
the
enormous additional cost that would entail. After all, 50%
is a lot better
than we should have if we don't move beyond our current
chicken-feed
searches.
MARSHALL MASTERS: Any substantial gain in our ability to detect
these
150-meter objects is better than what we've presently got, but
given the
current fragile and explosive tensions in the Middle East, we
simply haven't
got years to deploy such a system, which is not to say it
shouldn't be done.
However, for the sake of decreasing what is obviously a serious
threat to
our national security, what can we do today?
BRIAN MARSDEN: There a great deal we can do today, provided we
have the
political resolve. For example, there are more than enough
telescopes of
sufficient size currently in operation that could be quickly
re-purposed to
the task cataloging 150-meter NEO Earth crossers, that is,
provided the
owners of those telescopes could be convinced to allow the
conversion. Aha,
and there would be the rub. Somebody would have to scratch
their backs to
get them. However, this would get us up and going in relatively
short order.
Again, it is only a matter of will. We have the technology and as
my friends
at NASA would say, "we're good to go."
MARSHALL MASTERS: It is reassuring to know that we have an
immediate and
workable option, but the political process in Washington has more
twists and
turns than a donkey trail, and all too often all you're left with
is what
the donkey leaves behind. Given this, if both of your short-term
or
long-term options are viewed as being politically untenable, is
there a
politically expedient compromise path we could follow?
BRIAN MARSDEN: we're already stretched to the extreme by obtuse
political
compromises and from a general deficiency of funding from NASA
and other
international organizations and nations. The problem is that
computers --
and even the 1-meter telescopes and imaging devices that are
currently being
used -- are cheap when compared with people. Everyone seems to
think that
computer technology is all we need, but we cannot do the whole
thing with
computers alone.
Regardless of the equipment funding, it takes real people with
real talent
and a real commitment to make this work properly. However, this
requires an
ongoing commitment, and this I fear would frighten those in
Washington more
than anything else.
MARSHALL MASTERS: One of the most tragic lessons we learned as a
result of
9-11, is that when we allow ourselves to become overly dependent
on
computers as a people replacement, we're inviting unforeseen
catastrophe.
However, many would still argue that it is easier to measure
productivity
gains as result of computerization, as opposed to the efficient
recruitment
and management of qualified people. With this in mind, how could
you
possibly hope to justify the additional manpower requirements
inherent a
project of this scale?
BRIAN MARSDEN: That would be very simple. Because the NEO search
programs
have always had to beg for money the staff of the Minor Planet
Center work
unpaid hours every week. A short week for us is 80 hours, even
though we are
salaried at 40 hours.
But those of us who work on that scale are the lucky ones, you
might say, as
others in the search business willingly work full time + overtime
weeks but
are paid for only 20 hours. Why do they do it? Because they
believe so much
in what they are doing! I'd certainly love to see a defense
contractor like
Boeing or Lockheed get that much productivity out their
employees, even at
twice the price.
MARSHALL MASTERS: To be honest, Dr. Marsden, I was a contractor
at Lockheed
myself on a satellite project, and from my personal experience I
would
definitely say that you have an airtight argument there. But
then, I'm not
the one making the decision. But if I were, the first
question I'd ask you
is: "Given your present situation, what are your chances of
finding a
150-meter impactor before it starts a nuclear war in the Middle
East?" How
would you answer that question?
BRIAN MARSDEN: Given the present level of financial support for
our present
efforts, the chances are somewhere between none and dumb luck.
Simply put,
we must now consider ourselves to be wholly vulnerable to this
risk, and all
of us in the NEO-detection field find this deeply troubling,
since the world
changed for the worse on September 11.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
It is About Our Lives and Their Legacies
After concluding my interview with Dr. Marsden, I made a cup of
hot coffee
and reviewed our question-and-answer session several times. The
part that
really bothered me the most is that our leaders use formulas to
decide who
will die and who will live. Perhaps there was a time when
that was a
politically expedient way to manage the NEO threat, but wasn't it
was also
that kind of thinking that allowed us to blindside ourselves to
the events
leading up to September 11, 2001?
Is it possible that our leaders in Washington will give this
national
security threat the attention it deserves? Most likely not,
but they can
depend on one absolute - the Internet will not give them a pass
should they
fail us again by letting an unforeseen impact event trigger a
global nuclear
holocaust.
Warnings like those mentioned in this article will be tucked away
in the
niches and corners of the Internet where future historians will
eventually
find them. In that future time, the most urgent goal of
generations will be
defined with a simple mantra, "never again." With this
mantra in mind, they
apply these candid warnings with firm brushstrokes across the
legacies they
will paint for our leaders.
No matter how great your achievements in this lifetime can be;
leaders
beware - do not ignore this potential brushstroke of fate if you
truly value
your own legacy.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
About Dr. Brian G. Marsden
Associate director and astronomer at the Smithsonian
Astrophysical
Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Born in Cambridge, England, Dr. Marsden lived through the air
attacks on
England during WW II as a child and remembers the horrors of what
happens
when death falls from the sky. Filled with a great purpose by
those early
memories, he is committed advocate of public education about the
ever-present threat of impact events, which he does in addition,
to his many
NEO detection responsibilities. He is truly a hero by
today's definition of
the term.
SPECIALTIES: Celestial mechanics and astrometry, with particular
application
to the study of comets and asteroids.
EDUCATION: Undergraduate education at Oxford University; Ph.D.
degree from
Yale University; dissertation on the orbits of the Galilean
satellites of Jupiter.
NOTABLE DISCOVERIES: Successful track record of predicting the
return of
several lost comets and asteroids. His most famous
prediction was the 1992
return of Comet Swift-Tuttle, which has the longest period of any
comet ever
successfully predicted.
PUBLICATIONS: "Catalogue of Cometary Orbits" --
Thirteen editions published
since 1972.
INTERNATIONAL ASTRONOMICAL UNION (IAU): Director, IAU Minor
Planet Center
(1978 - Present). Responsibilities include the issuance of
electronic
information several times each day plus batches of printed
circulars monthly
with positional observations, orbital elements and related
information about
comets and asteroids.
Director, IAU Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams (1968 -
2000).
Responsibilities included the timely dissemination of information
about
transient astronomical objects and events.
=============
(6) TIMELY REMINDER: "FIRST STRIKE OR ASTEROID IMPACT?"
>From Space.com, 6 June 2002
http://space.com/scienceastronomy/astronomy/nss_asteroid_020606.html
By Leonard David
Senior Space Writer
DENVER, COLORADO -- Military strategists and space scientists
that wonder
and worry about a run-in between Earth and a comet or asteroid
have
additional worries in these trying times. With world tensions
being the way
they are, even a small incoming space rock, detonating over any
number of
political hot-spots, could trigger a country's nuclear response
convinced it
was attacked by an enemy.
Getting to know better the celestial neighborhood, chock full of
passer-by
asteroids and comets is more than a good idea. Not only can these
objects
become troublesome visitors, they are also resource-rich and
scientifically
bountiful worlds....
Being struck by a giant asteroid or comet isn't the main concern
for Air
Force Brigadier General Simon Worden, deputy director of
operations for the
United States Space Command at Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado.
He sweats
the small stuff.
Worden painted a picture of the next steps needed in planetary
defense. His
views are not from U.S. Department of Defense policy but are his
own
personal perspectives, drawing upon a professional background of
astronomy.
For example, Worden said, several tens of thousands of years ago
an asteroid
just 165-feet (50 meters) in diameter punched a giant hole in the
ground
near Winslow, Arizona. Then there was the Tunguska event. In June
1908, a
massive fireball breached the sky, then exploded high above the
Tunguska
River valley in Siberia. Thought to be in the range of 165-feet
(50 meters)
to 330 feet (100 meters) in size, that object created a
devastating blast
equal to a 5 to 10 megaton nuclear explosion. A similar
event is thought to
have taken place in the late 1940s in Kazakhstan.
"There's probably several hundred thousand of these
100-meter or so
objects...the kind of ones that we worry about," Worden
said. However, these
are not the big cosmic bruisers linked with killing off dinosaurs
or
creating global catastrophes.
On the other hand, if you happen to be within a few tens of miles
from the
explosion produced by one of these smaller near-Earth objects,
"you might
think it's a pretty serious catastrophe," Worden said.
"The serious planetary defense efforts that we might mount
in the next few
decades will be directed at much smaller things," Worden
said. Some 80
percent of the smaller objects cross the Earth's orbit,
"some of which are
potentially threatening, or could be in the centuries
ahead," he said.
Nuclear trigger
One set of high-tech military satellites is on special
round-the-clock
vigil. They perform global lookout duty for missile launches.
However, they
also spot meteor fireballs blazing through Earth's atmosphere.
Roughly 30
fireballs detonate each year in the upper atmosphere, creating
equivalent to
a one-kiloton bomb burst, or larger, Worden said.
"These things hit every year and look like nuclear weapons.
And a couple
times a century they actually hit and cause a lot of
damage," Worden said.
"We now have 8 or 10 countries around the world with nuclear
weapons...and
not all of them have very good early warning systems. If one of
these things
hits, say anywhere in India or Pakistan today, we would have a
very bad
situation. It would be awfully hard to explain to them that it
wasn't the
other guy," Worden pointed out.
Similarly, a fireball-caused blast over Tel Aviv or Islamabad
"could be
easily confused as a nuclear detonation and it may trigger a
war," Worden
said.
Meanwhile, now moving through the U.S. Defense Department
circles, Worden
added, is a study delving into issues of possibly setting up an
asteroid
warning system. That system could find a home within the Cheyenne
Mountain
Complex outside Colorado Springs, Colorado. The complex is the
nerve center
for the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and
United States
Space Command missions.
FULL ARTICLE at
http://space.com/scienceastronomy/astronomy/nss_asteroid_020606.html
============================
* LETTERS TO THE MODERATOR *
============================
(7) HISTORICAL RECORDS OF IMPACT FATALITIES
>From Michael Paine <mpaine@tpg.com.au>
Dear Benny
In his book 'Comet and asteroid impact hazards of a populated
Earth', John
Lewis describes more than 150 reports of damage, injury, death
and near
misses that are best attributed to cosmic impacts (mostly very
small or
fragmented objects). He suggests that the assertion "nobody
has ever been
killed by a meteorite" is indefensible and that a more
accurate summary of
the evidence would be "nobody has ever been killed by a
meteorite in the
presence of a physician and a meteoriticist". Taking Hermann
Burchard's
point (CCNet 5Jul02), perhaps that should read
"nobody has ever been killed by a meteorite in the presence
of a physician
and a meteoriticist WHO SURVIVED THE IMPACT"
regards
Michael Paine
================
(8) IMPACT-INDUCED RINGS
>From Peter Haines <Peter.Haines@utas.edu.au>
Dear Benny,
I have just read with interest the 'in press' paper by Fawcett
and Boslough
that has been discussed in recent days. On page 31 the authors
speculate
that late Neoproterozoic glaciations may have been caused by
impact-induced
rings, and point to the age similarity between the Acraman impact
and the
Marinoan glaciation. While I find the overall concept of a
ring-glaciation
connection rather interesting and provocative, there is no
possibility of a
genetic link between Acraman and the Marinoan glaciation. The age
for
Acraman (now generally given as ~580 Ma) is not derived from the
crater
itself, but is a stratigraphic age obtained from an ejecta layer
within
Neoproterozoic shales of the nearby Adelaide Geosyncline (Gostin
et al.
1986). The Adelaide Geosyncline is also the type area of the
Marinoan
glaciation and the glacial deposits and the ejecta are found in
the same
stratigraphic sections where the later always lies above the
former. In the
classic Bunyeroo George section the ejecta layer lies nearly 1000
m above
the cap dolomite marking the end of the glaciation. However, it
may be worth
noting that there has been speculation that one of the
glaciations preserved
in northern Australia is possibly younger than the type Marinoan
(Grey &
Corkeron 1998). Incidentally, the generally accepted size of
Acraman is now
90-95 km (rather than the 150 km quoted), with some authors
suggesting a
significantly smaller diameter.
Reference:
Gostin V.A., Haines P.W., Jenkins R.J.F., Compston W. &
Williams I.S. 1986.
Impact ejecta horizon within late Precambrian shales, Adelaide
Geosyncline,
South Australia. Science 233, 198-200.
Grey, K. & Corkeron, M., 1998. Late Neoproterozoic
stromatolites in
glacigenic successions of the Kimberley region - Western
Australia: evidence
for a second Marinoan glaciation. Precambrian Research 92, 65-87.
Best regards, Peter Haines
University of Tasmania
Peter.Haines@utas.edu.au
*****************************************************
* Dr Peter Haines
* School of Earth Sciences, University of Tasmania
* GPO Box 252-79 Hobart, Tasmania 7001,
AUSTRALIA
* email: Peter.Haines@utas.edu.au
* phone: +61 3 6226 7157 fax:
+61 3 6223 2547
*****************************************************
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