Incoming Asteroid
The chances that a 1,000-foot-wide asteroid will strike the Earth in 2036 are estimated to be 1-in-6,250, a risk said to comparable to tornadoes and snakebites. The last such impact occured in Tunguska, Siberia in 1908. There's a 2% chance of an impact of this magnitude this century.
The B612 Foundation, named for the asteroid home of the Little Prince in Antoine de Saint-Exupery's The Little Prince, recommends more funding. "On early warning; the critical issue now is to see that the commendable charge to NASA by the US Congress is funded," said foundation chairman Russell L. Schweickart at the International Space Development Conference in May. "NASA cannot, in the current environment, mount a serious effort to discover 90% of all NEOs 140 meters and greater by 2020 without additional funding and Congressional support. Your congressperson should hear from you that this is serious and should be supported. Remember, we’re dealing here with a less frequent, but far more devastating Katrina, a Katrina of the Cosmos."
David Morrison, an astrobiologist at NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif. told The Orlando Sentinel that NASA initially had trouble getting people to heed asteroid warnings due to "the giggle factor."
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