THE PLANETARY SOCIETY AUSTRALIAN VOLUNTEERS  - SPACEGUARD PAGE

17 May 05: Email virus alert - someone has a virus that is spewing out emails with a false sender address.  My address (mpaineATtpgi.com.au) is being used at times. These emails are NOT originating from me and there is nothing I can do about it. Please ensure your computer has an active virus checker to stop this sort of thing.

The search for Near Earth Objects (NEO) - Microplanets (comets, asteroids and meteoroids) that share our region of the solar system. Inspired by the work of Gene Shoemaker and a memorial lecture by Ken Russell from the Anglo Australian Observatory.  The term Spaceguard was coined by Arthur C Clarke in his 1973 science fiction novel Rendezvous with Rama. The introduction has an uncanny September 11 coincidence.  (Extract)

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Alerts

• 20 Aug 09 NAS: Near-Earth Object Surveys and Hazard Mitigation Strategies: Interim Report (free PDF, thanks Duncan Steel)
• 1 Aug 09 The Australian: Call to reinstate asteroid search - note that mention of the current search and follow-up program by Rob McNaught and colleagues got cut out by the editor!  Copy of open letter to Prime Minister Rudd.
• 30 Jul 09 NASA: New website: Asteroid Watch.
• 28 Jul 09 TPS: Help Protect the Earth from Near-Earth Asteroids - donations sought
• 4 March 09 Arizona State University: Our Catstrophic Solar System: Impacts and the latest Revolution in Earth Science - Jay Melosh
• 2 Mar 09 ABC News:  30m asteroid to have close call with Earth [tonight] - "the asteroid was discovered by fellow ANU astronomer Rob McNaught on Friday. .. if it did hit, the rock is too small to cause significant damage." (nonsense - a 30m object has much more energy than the Hiroshima atomic bomb and would cause an airblast as big as the Tunguska event) + Examiner: Tunguska-sized asteroid to skim Earth tomorrow closer than the moon, some satellites + NASA: Orbit Diagram + UT: Asteroid 2009 DD45 Just Buzzed by Earth.
• 6 Jan 09 NASA (via Space.com): Ideas Sought to Protect Earth from Space Rocks - see also To Nuke or To Nudge.
• 7 Oct 08 Space.com: Small Asteroid to Streak into Earth's Atmosphere Tonight - this is the first case of an object detected by the (northern hemisphere) Spaceguard system that has been calculated to strike the Earth. It is only 2 metres in diameter and will explode in the upper atmosphere. Spaceweather.com update (diagram showing trajectory over Sudan).
• 26 Sep 08 Association of Space Explorers (ASE): Asteroid Threats: A Call for Global Response (PDF)
• 3 Sep 08 The Rosetta Blog - online coverage of asteorid fly-by. UT: Countdown to Asteroid Flyby.
• 26 Aug 08 TPS: Support The Planetary Society Phobos LIFE Project - urgent request for donations to send microbes on a round trip to the Martian moon to test the transpermia hypothesis.
• 26 Jun 08 Nature: Tunguska at 100 (by Duncan Steel)  + The burger bar that saved the world (interviews with key Spaceguard people) - The truly remarkable thing was that [the K/T impact was] such a small impact — that has no effect on the Earth's rotation, its axis, its magnetic field, completely negligible physically — could nevertheless wipe out most of the life on the Earth. Many of the interviewed people signed the  letter to the Australian Government in 2002. Note that computer simulations show that most potentially fatal impact events events DO NOT LEAVE IMPACT CRATERS - they result from an ocean impact (with many of the fatalities due to tsunami) or Tunguska-like fragmentation over land. The proportion of fatal events that involve a land impact gradually increases from less than 1% for events with around 100 fatalities to 16% for events with around 1 million fatalities. Airburst impacts by small NEOs (under 100m diameter) typically result in around 100,000 fatalities.  
• 12 Jun 08 Space.com: Pluto Now Called a Plutoid - see also Microplanet essay.
• 19 Mar 08 ABC: Sci-fi guru Arthur C Clarke dies - there are many references to Sir Arthur on these pages.
• 25 Feb 08 GaiaShield: Call for signatures to support the NEO Preparedness Act.
• 13 Jan 08 Space.com: Space Rock [probably] Won't Wallop Mars, Scientists Say. Odds now 1 in 10,000.
• 29 Dec 07 NASA: Astronomers have identified asteroid 2007 WD 5 in archival imagery. With these new observations, scientists at NASA's Near-Earth Object Program Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif have refined their trajectory estimates for the asteroid. Based on this latest analysis, the odds for the asteroid impacting Mars on Jan. 30 are now 1-in-25 -- or about 4 percent (David Morrison adds that it is "normal" for the odds to increase with this type of close approach - the main point is that extra observations have not eliminated an impact at this stage)
• 27 Dec 07 Us Govt: Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) – Status of the Survey Program and Review of NASA’s Report to Congress (thanks Rusty Schweickart - see also 13 Nov item)
• 22 Dec 07 LA times: Asteroid on track for possible Mars hit - 1 in 75 chance of an impact on 30 January 2008 (thanks David Morrison) + NewSci: Asteroid may hit Mars in January + JPL podcast: Is an Asteroid Heading Toward Mars?
• 13 Dec 07 SMH: Sydney meteor shower alert - early hours of Saturday morning
• 25 Nov 07 The Age: Howard concedes election ... [opinion]  some 11 years after he cancelled the Australian Spaceguard program. 100s of Near Earth Asteroids have passed through southern skies unnoticed in that time. Some may pose a future threat to Earth and up to 11 years will have been lost in mitigating that threat.  
• 13 Nov 07 NASA Extracts from Congressional hearing (thanks David Morrison):
• The ability to detect virtually every potentially hazardous Near-Earth object and determine its orbit with precision transforms that statistical threat into a deterministic prediction. We face many threats, and virtually all of them are either so complex or unpredictable that they are treated probabilistically even though the social and financial consequences are legion. With a comparatively small investment the NEO risk can be transformed from a probabilistic one to a deterministic one, enabling mitigation - J. Anthony Tyson
• While suitable deflection technologies exist, none of them can be effective if we are taken by surprise. It is the aggressive survey efforts and robust planetary radars that must ensure that the vast majority of potentially hazardous objects are discovered and tracked well in advance of any Earth threatening encounters. The first three steps in any asteroid mitigation process are: Find them early, find them early, and find them early! - Don Yeomans
• Unlike other natural hazards, however, NEO impacts can be predicted well ahead of time and actually prevented from occurring. If we live up to our responsibility, if we wisely use our amazing technology, and if we are mature enough, as a nation and as a community of nations, there may never again be a substantially damaging asteroid impact on the Earth. We have the ability to make ourselves safe from cosmic extinction. If we cannot manage to meet this challenge, we will, in my opinion, have failed to meet our evolutionary responsibility. - Rusty Schweickart
• 12 Nov 07 Armagh Observatory:  The Leonid Meteors 2007 - see also Leonids page.
• 12 Nov 07 NewSci: NASA blasted for ignoring smaller asteroids + NASA: Congressional Hearings on NEO Survey Programs (testimonies)
• 6 Jun 07 NASA: 2006 Near-Earth Object Survey and Deflection Study: Final Report + Clark Chapman: Critique of "2006 Near-Earth Object Survey and Deflection Study: Final Report"  Published 28 Dec. 2006 by NASA Hq. Program Analysis & Evaluation Office (Word doc) + Summary and Recommendations from AIAA Planetary Defense Conference (thanks David Morrison)
• 8 Mar 07 Space.com: NASA Can't Afford Hunt for Killer Asteroids
• 19 Feb 07 New Scientist: Asteroid threat demands response, experts warn.
• 5 Feb 07 Spaceweather: ASTEROID FLYBY: Mark your calendar. On March 31st, a 2-km wide asteroid named 2006 VV2 will glide past Earth. There's no danger of a collision: the space rock will be 8.8 times farther away than the Moon.The flyby is interesting because it is so bright, between 9th and 10th magnitude...
• 20 Jan 07 - Comet, crescent Moon and Venus in one shot - image by Michael Paine. Spectacular images by Rob McNaught.
• 19 Jan 07 Comet McNaught C/2006 P1 from Sydney - image by Michael Paine
• 17 Jan 07 Quasar Publishing: Astronomy 2007: The Book - has a superb article on the status of Spaceguard by Duncan Steel. Only available in the book.
• 16 Jan 07 Space.com: The Great Comet of 2007: Watch it on the Web - spotted from Sydney on the evening of 15 Jan very close to the horizon just to the left of where the Sun set.
• 11 Jan 07 Space.com: New Comet is Brightest in 30 Years  - currently visible around sunset in the Northern Hemisphere. Stand-by for a great show in coming weeks Rob McNaught's tips.
• 30 Dec 06 NASA NEO News: Arecibo Radar Threatened...+ CNN: Finances cloud future of 'Contact' telescope - "a looming cut in U.S. government financing"..."By bouncing radio waves off asteroids, it also charts their location, speed, course and some other characteristics...". See also SpaceDaily: Radar Love: Asteroid Detection And Science - "microwaves from the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico reached out and touched asteroid Apophis on Jan. 27, 29, and 30, 2005. The Arecibo data significantly improved the asteroid's orbital estimate, ruling out a potential Earth collision in 2029. The 1,000-foot diameter Arecibo telescope is one of only two places in the world where radar astronomy is effectively performed. The other is at the 70-meter Goldstone antenna in California's Mojave Desert. The two instruments are complementary. The Arecibo radar is not fully steerable (while Goldstone is), but it is 30 times more sensitive. Together they make a formidable asteroid reconnaissance team...". Comment: The ill-advised budget cuts at Arecibo radio telescope are similar the Australian government's cancellation  the Australian component of Spaceguard in 1996.
• 28 Dec 06 UT: Close Call with Asteroid 2006 XG1 in 2041 - 670m diameter space rock with a 1 in 77,000 chance of hitting the Earth on 31 Oct 2041 (NASA calcs). Further observations will likely eliminate any risk of collision. BUT mankind might not have the accurate instrument to do the job - see item above about Arecibo radio telescope.
• 12 Dec 06 Space Review: Can we detect asteroid impacts with rocky extrasolar planets? by Michael Paine
• 18 Nov 06 Space.com: Viewer's Guide: The 2006 Leonid Meteor Shower  - [the peak] encounter is predicted for Nov. 19 at 4:45 GMT (see Leonids news & links)  - unfortunately it will be about 4pm on Sun 19 Nov in Sydney and the sky won't be dark for another 4 hours. But try early Sunday morning [update: no show in Sydney!]
• 19 Oct 06 Space.com: Strong Leonid Meteor Shower Expected Nov 18 (see Leonids news & links)
• 10 Oct 06 BBC: UK to join 'killer' asteroid hunt.
• 4 Sep 06 Planetary Society:  Apophis Mission Design Competition - Will Apophis (see 2 June item below) pass through the "keyhole," the small area on its 2029 path that would cause it to hit Earth on its next orbit in 2036? We have to find out, because if an impact is likely to occur, we're going to need all the time possible to plan and implement space missions to deflect it away from Earth. No government currently has plans to accurately track this potential Earth-impactor - the Planetary Scoiety needs funds to take up this challenge.
• 3 Jul 06 Space.com: Asteroid Spotting: Skywatchers to Glimpse Close Flyby. It will be early Monday afternoon (daylight!) in Australia. Spaceweather.com tips. 2004 XP14 Planning for radar observations by NASA. JPL data.
• 17 May 06 Space.com: NASA to Look into NEO Threat Response Proposals - "The U.S. Congress has declared that the general welfare and security of the United States require that the unique competence of NASA be directed to detecting, tracking, cataloguing, and characterizing near-Earth asteroids and comets in order to provide warning and mitigation of the potential hazard of such near-Earth objects to the Earth..."  (see also Rocks from Space)
• 12 May 06 Comet 73P/Schwassman-Wachmann 3 is poorly positioned for viewing from Australia this weekend. Just before dawn it is very low in the northern sky (RA 20h 31m, Dec 27.52 degrees). Northern hemisphere observers will have a much better view.
• 23 Apr 06 SpaceDaily: Cometary String Of Pearls To Swing Past Earth In May.
• 26 Jan 06 (Happy Australia Day!) TPS: [Deep Impact] Comet Crater Contest Inconclusive
• 23 Jan 06 TPS: Donations sought for 2006 Shoemaker NEO Grants. TPS members have been sent a letter of suport from Rusty Schweickart.
• 3 Nov 05 - speculation about spotting extra-solar impacts
• 5 Jul 05 TPS report on Deep Impact mission.
• 4 Jul 05 4pm Sydney time - We have impact (at right - a screen snapshot of the image that JPL people cheered)!
  
• 2 Jun 05: A Call for (Considered) Action, Russell L. Schweickart. Abstract, (Word 2000, 21K) Full paper, (.pdf, 883K) B612 Foundation. The 2029/2036 "keyhole" for 2004 MN4 is only 600 metres across - a very small "nudge" would prevent an impact in 2036 (if the NEO would otherwise pass through that keyhole)
  
• 21 Mar 05 Royal Astronomical Society of Canada Dec98: Impact cratering through geologic time (updated URL) by Gene Shoemaker (3Mb PDF) - a landmark paper. Covers the various ways of estimating impact rates, the possibility that we are in a peak of comet impacts due to the oscillation of the Sun through the galactic plane and the Australasian Tektite event as an example of the current peak.

• 5 Feb 05 S&T: ASTEROID 2004 MN4: A REALLY NEAR MISS - a 320m diameter rock will pass within 30,000km of the Earth on Friday 13 April 2029. Since the Earth travels at about 1800km/minute around the Sun a "miss" of 30,000km represents 15 minutes in the least favourable configuration (Earth moves one radius in 3.33 minutes). A 320m asteroid is not particularly "huge" but if it hit it would create a 6km wide crater and flatten buildings out to about 100km.
  On 18 December, the object was rediscovered by Gordon Garradd at Siding Spring in New South Wales., Australia. This raised an alert among astronomers who, fortunately, now know that it will miss the Earth in 2029. But it will come back to haunt us in subsequent centuries.
  Gordon was a member of Spaceguard Australia, which was disbanded in 1996 when Australian government funding was stopped. In frustration NASA has partly funded his important work.
  
• 29 Dec 04 NASA: Possibility of an Earth Impact in 2029 Ruled Out for Asteroid 2004 MN4  "once again old observations provided the data necessary to rule out an impact" (Benny Peiser)) - up until then new observations were suggesting an increased risk of an impact - stay tuned as this story unfolds! Updated Torino Scale.
  
• 24 Dec 04 UT: Asteroid 2004 MN4 Gets the Highest Score on the Torino Scale (400m in diameter, 1 in 300 chance of impact in  2029 - further observations will likely eliminate the risk). NASA news release. 2004 MN4 was discovered on 19 June 2004 by Roy Tucker, David Tholen and Fabrizio Bernardi of the NASA-funded University of Hawaii Asteroid Survey (UHAS), from Kitt Peak, Arizona, and observed over two nights. On 18 December, the object was rediscovered from Australia by Gordon Garradd of the Siding Spring Survey, another NASA-funded NEA survey.
• 25 Nov 04 Icarus (abstract): Bias-corrected population, size distribution, and impact hazard for the near-Earth objects - this study suggests that the impact rate is several times lower than earlier estimates.
  
• 9 Nov 04 Xinhuanet : CHINA JOINS SPACEGUARD EFFORTS - Largest near-earth objects telescope [in China] installed - still only a small professional search in the Southern Hemisphere.
• 4 Nov 04: PROTECTING EARTH FROM ASTEROIDS AND COMETS - (PDF) An AIAA Position Paper (2004)... world governments must take the threat of NEO impacts seriously and must support actions that lead to the development of credible defensive capabilities.
• 8-9 Nov 04: Australian Risk Engineering Conference - RISK 2004.Keynote Speaker - Duncan Steel
• 7 Oct 04 Abstracts for the proceedings of Bioastronomy 2002: Life Among the Stars now available - several papers concerning microplanets.
  
• 12 Aug 04 Comment: Despite good progress towards the US Spaceguard Goal  (90% of 1km+ Near Earth Asteroids detected by 2008) there are still plenty of gaps in our defences and no sign of serious support from governments outside the USA and Japan. With sufficient resources there is the potential, within a decade or so, to eliminate the threat of global catastrophe from short period comets (that return to our region of the solar system every few years). The threat of local catastrophe from a Tunguska-like airburst will take much longer to deal with, as will the global threat from long period comets and asteroids. Results from a simulation that derives fatality rates for each type of impactor (the overall risk has reduced since the simualtion was undertaken but the relative contribution is unchanged).
• 5 Jul 04 :"I ask you to declare your support for these dedicated watchers of the sky by making a donation to The Planetary Society's Gene Shoemaker NEO Grant Fund. Your donation could make a profound difference - for science and for the safety of humankind." Sincerely, Louis D. Friedman
  Executive Director -The Planetary Society
• Aug 03 NASA: Near Earth Object Science Definition Team Report "Study to determine the feasibility of extending the search for Near Earth Object to smaller limitg diameters". (1.2Mb PDF)
• 26 May 04 EPSL paper: The hazard of near-Earth asteroid impacts on earth by Clark Chapman (PDF)
  
• 20 Apr 04: PLANETARY DEFENCE AT LEARMONTH SOLAR OBSERVATORY - Western Australia (thanks Jay Tate and CCNet)
• 9 Apr 04 Uni Arizona: ASTRONOMERS TAKE SEARCH FOR EARTH-THREATENING SPACE ROCKS TO SOUTHERN SKIES - Rob McNaught's project comes online. (CC)
  
• 26 Feb 04 Space.com: Earth At Risk: New Calls For Planetary Defense. - Developing a viable mitigation campaign, Yeomans explained, demands three prerequisites: "You need to find them early. You need to find them early. And we need to find them early."
• 20 Feb 04 IAU: Working Group on Near-Earth Objects - Information on Near-Earth Object AL00667
    WGNEO STATEMENT ON DEALING WITH SHORT-TERM IMPACT PREDICTIONS
  Issued by the IAU Working Group on NEOs (WGNEO). Issue date: 2004 February 19
  On the night of January 13/14, 2004, the international asteroid science community faced an unprecedented situation, with an initial prediction of an impact of a small [30m - if it had been as close as first thought] asteroid on the Earth within a few days. [It missed us by millions of km]. Postscript: As an indication of the poor quality of journalism sometimes covering these events, in several US newspapers "30m" was interpreted as 30 miles - now THAT would have caused some excitement!
  
• 24 Jan 04 Spacewatch: Online Spacewatch Volunteer Discovers Close-Approaching Asteroid (CC) - Human observers are still much better than computers at finding FMOs in Spacewatch images. But the work is too time intensive for on-duty Spacewatch observers. So the astronomers have turned to 30 volunteers for help. FMO project volunteers are based in the United States, Germany, and Finland.
  They would gladly accept more. The only requirements are interest, sharp eyes, and access to a computer when astronomers are operating Spacewatch telescopes on Kitt Peak. More details on how to volunteer for the FMO Project are on the Web at FMO Project.
• 17 May 05: PDF of talk given at Australian Centre for Astrobiology in 2003: Asteroids - now for the good news in conjunction with a talk by Mark Sonter on asteroid mining.
• 23 Jul 02 Bioastronomy 2002 paper by Paine and Peiser: The Frequency and Consequences of Cosmic Impacts Since the Demise of the Dinosaurs (280K PDF). A shortened, refereed version is now published in the Proceedings of Bioastronomy 2002: Life Among the Stars. See also CLIMATE, COMETS AND HUMAN HISTORY by Dr Vic Gostin

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"No one wants to look back and regret actions not taken" - Dr David Suzuki, The Nature of Things.

'Many might say "But we know of no one that has ever died from an asteroid impact." That's true [in recent times], but then who has ever died from a thermonuclear explosion? Surely no one would claim that they are not dangerous?' - Arthur C Clarke, Foreword to Rogue Asteroids and Doomesday Comets by Duncan Steel.


"No one has ever been killed by a meteorite in the presence of a meteoritist and a medical doctor!" - John Lewis

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NEO/Microplanet News
See also Tsunami News , Leonid meteor shower and Planetary News

Recent items are near the top (posting date shown).
For more news see Spaceguard UK's News page, Spaceviews, NASA's Asteroid/Comet Impact Hazard news page and NEO Office News Page (NNN), The Planetary Society NEO News, The Cosmic Mirror , Cambridge Conference Network(CC), SpaceDaily, Tumbling Stone (SGF/NEODys), SpaceWeather.com (has a list of forthcoming close approaches), Asteroid/Comet Connection, Universe Today (UT- space news from around the Internet, updated every weekday)

Send us your NEO news tips for posting here.

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• 21 Nov 09 NewSci: 'Frankenstein' fix lets asteroid mission cheat death - The beleaguered Hayabusa asteroid probe is back on track to return to Earth after a clever workaround coaxed one of its ion engines back to life...
• 20 Nov 09 NewSci: Was there a Stone Age apocalypse or not? + BBC: Mammoth dung unravels extinction.
• 7 Nov 09 NewSci: Was life founded on cyanide from space crashes?  (see also Asteroids - now for the good news)
• 2 Nov 09 Space.com: Strong Leonid Meteor Shower Expected Nov 17  - more on Leonids
• 27 Oct 09 UK Telegraph: Asteroids should be next small step for man in space, panel tells President Barack Obama (thanks Duncan Steel) (see also Riches in the Rubble)
• 27 Oct 09 BBC: Doubts over Latvia 'meteor crash'
• 25 Oct 09 NASA/JPL: Asteroid Impactor [airburst] Reported over Indonesia - thought to be due to the atmospheric entry of a small asteroid about 10 meters in diameter. It had more than twice the explosive energy of the Hiroshima A-bomb but was much higher in the atmosphere so posed little dager of ground damage.
• 25 Oct 09 EPSL ($): Why aqueous alteration in asteroids was isochemical: High porosity ≠ high permeability +
  Dynamic fault weakening and the formation of large impact craters .
• 14 Oct 09 Nature: North America comet theory questioned [13,000BC]
• 14 Oct 09 NewSci: NASA puzzles over 'invisible' moon impact + Asteroid isn't just a dry heap of rubble + Fresh impact risks for asteroid 'poster child' [Apophis] + Killer asteroid hunter suffers from poor vision + 'Deep space' [asteroid] mission is frontrunner in NASA review [of manned space flight].
• 14 Sep 09 SpaceDaily: Earth Rocks In Space - see also this extract from Planets, written by Carl Sagan in 1966.
• 13 Sep 09 Icarus Vol 203 Issue 2 ($)
• Long term impact risk for (101955) 1999 RQ36
• Detection of Earth-impacting asteroids with the next generation all-sky surveys
• Distribution and properties of fragments and debris from the split Comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 as revealed by Spitzer Space Telescope
• 11 Sep 09 Space.com: Life in the Dark: How Organisms Survived Asteroid Impacts - see also Environmental effects.
• 9 Sep 09 NewSci: Rain of meteorites makes the moon hum.
• 7 Sep 09 Space.com: NASA's New Spaceships Could Tag-Team Asteroid 
• 4 Sep 09 Science ($): Re-viewing an Old Comet Reservoir
• 1 Sep 09 BBC: British plan to tackle asteroids.
• 20 Aug 09 NAS: Near-Earth Object Surveys and Hazard Mitigation Strategies: Interim Report (free PDF, thanks Duncan Steel)
• 19 Aug 09 BBC: 'Life chemical' detected in comet  - see transpermia
• 14 Aug 09 UT: NASA Doesn't Receive Enough Money for Mandated Asteroid Search - But the US isn't alone in the non-funding of asteroid searches. "Virtually no international funds are spent supporting ground-based NEO surveys, and international NEO discovery efforts are largely conducted on an ad hoc, voluntary, or amateur basis. NASA is the agency that has funded more than 97 percent of the discoveries of NEOs in the last decade,"
• 13 Aug 09 NewSci: Earth could be blindsided by asteroids, panel warns.
• 11 Aug 09 NASA: Planet Smash-Up Sends Vaporized Rock, Hot Lava Flying (see also Can we detect asteroid impacts with rocky extrasolar planets?)
• 8 Aug 09 Space.com: Near-Earth Asteroid Found to be Triplets.
• 7 Aug 09 SpaceDaily: Acquitting Comets Of Catastrophes - seems speculative to me - why do cratering rates appear to match the expected flux before this hypothesis was put forward?
• 7 Aug 09 UT: Half Comet-Half Asteroid a Fluke? Nope (See my essay from 2000.)
• 1 Aug 09 The Australian: Call to reinstate asteroid search - note that mention of the current search and follow-up program by Rob McNaught and colleagues got cut out by the editor!  Copy of open letter to Prime Minister Rudd.
• 31 Jul 09 Space.com: Comets From Edge of Solar System Unlikely to Hit Earth (not sure if they have allowed enough for the influence of passing stars - see note 5)
• 30 Jul  09 NewSci: Comets, not asteroids, to blame for moon's scarred face + Did an ice age boost human brain size? (see also The Frequency and Consequences of Cosmic Impacts Since the Demise of the Dinosaurs)
• 30 Jul 09 NASA: New website: Asteroid Watch.
• 28 Jul 09 Space Review: The new politics of planetary defense.
• 24 Jul 09 UT: New Image of Jupiter Impact in Infrared.
• 24 Jul 09 EPSL($): The use of heavy mineral correlation for determining the source of impact ejecta: A Manicouagan distal ejecta case study.
• 16 Jul 09 Newsci: Pluto's kin may have invaded asteroid belt.
• 1 Jul 09 EPSL ($): Mantle deformation beneath the Chicxulub impact crater .
• 25 Jun 09 UT: 1908 Tunguska Event Caused by Comet, New Research Reveals [confirms].
• 9 Jun 09 NASA: David Morrison's notes on the Planetary Defense Conference, April 2009. Essential reading for the status of Spaceguard. 
• 3 Jun 09 BBC: Space rocks turned tide for Earth - by releasing water and carbon dioxide.
• 21 May 09 UT: A Benevolent Sort of Asteroid Bombardment?
• 11 May 09 NewSci: Nearby [large] asteroid found orbiting sun backwards - astronomers think they should have spotted it before...
• 9 May 09 Icarus ($): Modeling the formation of the K–Pg boundary layer - The results are important for future investigations of the environmental effects of the Chicxulub impact...
• 5 May 09 SpaceDaily: New Evidence That Meteorite Did Not Wipe Out Dinosaurs (but the Chicxulub impact was sufficient to do the job) + The Asteroids Are Coming
• 5 May 09 UT: 2009 HC82: A Burnt-Out, Eccentric and Backward Near-Earth Asteroid.
• 2 May 09 UT: Cosmic Rays too Wimpy to Influence Climate (see Environmental effects of impacts)
• 30 Apr 09 TPS: Planetary Society Awards NEO Trackers Gene Shoemaker Near Earth Object Grants Given to Three [US] Observers.
• 29 Apr 09 Space.com: Asteroid Threat? Call the Space Lawyers
• 25 Apr 09 UT: How Will We Prepare for an Asteroid Impact? - completely lacking is an official structure for preparation, planning and timely decision-making in the event of a potential collision, as well as what country or entity would have the authorization and responsibility to act, or take care of the financial implications...
• 22 Apr 09 Nature: Why big [volcanic] eruptions don't always fuel mass extinctions - The finding also raises the possibility that the heating of sedimentary rocks by a huge asteroid impact and volcanic activity at the time of the dinosaurs may have played a role in their extinction (more on extinctions)
• 21 Apr 09 BBC: Rocky clues from dirty dead stars.
• 20 Apr 09 UT: How to Keep Asteroids Away: Tie Them Up.
• 19 Mar 09 TPS: Another Space-Rock Buzzes Earth.
• 19 Mar 09 New Scientist: Space storm alert: 90 seconds from catastrophe.
• 16 Mar 09 Icarus (abstracts):
• 3D triangulation of a Sun-grazing comet
• Did a large impact reorient the Moon?
• Spectral properties and composition of potentially hazardous Asteroid (99942) Apophis
• A survey of possible impact structures on 25143 Itokawa
• Itokawa's cratering record as observed by Hayabusa: Implications for its age and collisional history
• Modeling of lightcurves of binary asteroids
• 14 Mar 09 Space.com: Cometary Life Limit - what fraction of stellar systems may be uninhabitable due to comet impacts? Can we spot these impacts?
• 9 Mar 09 NASA Ames: Asteroid 2008TN166 - An asteroid discovered in late 2008 turns out to be the brightest (and presumably largest) new NEA since 2001. Its diameter is apparently between 3 and 4 km. Alan Harris (of the Space Science Institute) notes that we have discovered about 82 objects 3 km or larger. He estimates the Spaceguard Survey is at least 95% complete in that size range, so he guesses there are only about 4 more to find, most likely in rather unusual long-period orbits. The asteroid, 2008TN166, has a relatively long period of about 6 years. It was 4.27 AU from the Sun when it was discovered, nearly as far away as Jupiter. Such asteroids are sometimes referred to as NEAs with comet-like orbits. It was at perihelion in 2001 and 2007. Such large NEAs can still be detected fairly far from the Sun. It was discovered by the Mount Lemmon Survey, which detects objects down to magnitude 22. TN166 was favorably placed for observing in 2007 when it was much closer, but apparently nobody happened to be looking at the right place at the right time then. (David Morrison with help from Don Gennery and Al Harris). Scoop! Update this afternoon: Rob McNaught thought the orbital parameteres were unusual and, in any case, it should have been easily spotted in 2007. When he investigated further it turns out that the asteroid has been mis-identifed. It is a main-belt asteroid that will come nowhere near the Earth. MPC will update its records shortly.
• 9 Mar 09 The Age: Keeping the fires burning - But the media focus on dramatic crises fails to convey the need for ongoing funding of less visible catastrophes or preventive measures. In the 1990s, the World Bank and US Geological Survey found that $1 spent on preventive measures would have saved $7 in economic losses from the world's natural disasters — to say nothing of billions of lives...surely it's time to engage our heads and invest much more in prevention-focused projects with at least some chance of yielding lasting change.
• 4 Mar 09 SMH: Asteroid plays chicken with Earth - "No object of that size, or larger, has been observed to come closer to the Earth...if it had crashed into the ocean "I imagine it would produce a tsunami"  - No: an asteroid at least 1km in diameter is needed to produce a long-range tsunami. 
• 2 Mar 09 ABC News:  30m asteroid to have close call with Earth [tonight] - "the asteroid was discovered by fellow ANU astronomer Rob McNaught on Friday. .. if it did hit, the rock is too small to cause significant damage." (nonsense - a 30m object would cause an airblast as big as the Tunguska event)
• 21 Feb 09 UT: Sounds Painful: Are Deadly Asteroids Stuck in Earth's Lagrangian Points?
• 20 Feb 09 Space.com: Asteroid-Bound Probe Zooms Past Mars. See also Defending Earth: Fact Vs Fiction.
• 13 Feb 09 Nature ($): Dinosaur fossils suggest speedy extinction.
• 12 Feb 09 NewSci: 'Dark' comets may pose threat to Earth.
• 11 Feb 09 SpaceDaily: Sizing Up Asteroids.
• 8 Feb 09 UT: New Potentially Hazardous Asteroid Discovered (NASA details for 2009 BD81 - not the same one as 7 Feb item)
• 7 Feb 09 New Scientist: Asteroid bound for Earth! Warn your grandchildren.
• 6 Feb 09 Space.com: Beleaguered Japanese Asteroid Probe Headed Home.
• 31 Jan 09 NewSci: Dancing asteroid spirals close to Earth + New comet may be visible with the naked eye.
• 31 Jan 09 Icarus (abstracts):
• Full numerical simulations of catastrophic small body collisions
• On the shapes and spins of “rubble pile” asteroids
• Photometry and spin rate distribution of small-sized main belt asteroids
• Polarization of Asteroid (387) Aquitania: The newest member of a class of large inversion angle asteroids
• Chemical and physical properties of gas jets in comets: I. Monte Carlo model of an inner cometary coma
• Ion composition and chemistry in the coma of Comet 1P/Halley—A comparison between Giotto's Ion Mass Spectrometer and our ion-chemical network
• Digging into the surface of the icy dwarf planet Eris
• 28 Jan 09 SpaceDaily: Comet Impact Theory Disproved - New data disproves the recent theory that a large comet exploded over North America 12,900 years ago...(see 2 Jan)
• 27 Jan 09 UT: Strange Asteroid 2009 BD Stalks the Earth.
• 13 Jan 09 BBC: Hunt for space rocks intensifies [in northern hemisphere]
• 9 Jan 09 Uni Arizona: Catalina Sky Survey Sets New Record for NEO Discoveries, Receives Funding Through 2012 - CSS is the only NEO survey that covers both Northern and Southern hemispheres. Six observers use the UA's 1.5 meter, or 60-inch, reflector telescope at Steward Observatory's Mount Lemmon site and the 0.7 meter, or 28-inch, Schmidt telescope on Mount Bigelow in the Santa Catalina Mountains north of Tucson. Two observers use Australian National University's 0.5 meter, or 20-inch, Uppsala Schmidt telescope at Siding Spring, New South Wales, Australia...
• 8 Jan 09 NewSci: Comet smashes triggered ancient famine [536AD]
• 6 Jan 09 Canberra Times: Killer asteroids and the quest to save Earth.
• 2 Jan 09 Science ($): Did the Mammoth Slayer Leave a Diamond Calling Card? [evidence of impact 12,900 years ago]
• 27 Dec 08 EPSL ($):
• The timing and extent of the eruption of the Siberian Traps large igneous province: Implications for the end-Permian environmental crisis
•  Zircon U–Pb strain chronometry reveals deep impact-triggered flow
• Deccan plume, lithosphere rifting, and volcanism in Kutch, India
• 23 Dec 08 BBC: Tiny clues to collision in space [470 million years ago]
• 18 Dec 08 Space.com: Asteroid Hunt Goes Granular - Pan-STARRS 
• 17 Dec 08 TPS: Tribute to Steve Ostro + Louis Friedman's account of Steve Ostro's leadership in the fight to save Arecibo.
• 17 Dec 08 Nature: Volcanoes implicated in death of dinosaurs - Groups argue that an impact wasn't to blame. See previous items on this.
• 12 Dec 08 SpaceDaily: Constant Comet Threat - star-induced comet showers may not be as dramatic as once thought.
• 9 Dec 08 NewSci: Meteor[ite] impacts may have sparked life on Earth (see also Asteroids - now for the good news)
• 3 Dec 08 NewSci: Has an alien comet infiltrated the solar system?  Would not be surprising as passing stars have sometimes travelled through our Oort Cloud.
• 24 Nov 08 SMH: Opal miner stumbles on [possible] mega meteorite crater.
• 20 Nov 08 Icarus ($): The orbit and size distribution of small Solar System objects orbiting the Sun interior to the Earth's orbit + Near-Earth asteroid surface roughness depends on compositional class + A derivation of the luminosity function of the Kuiper belt from a broken power-law size distribution + Tentative detection of the rotation of Eris + C/2002 VQ94 (LINEAR) and 29P/Schwassmann–Wachmann 1 - CO+ and N+2 rich comets 
• 19 Nov 08 MIT: Early warning of dangerous asteroids and comets - Detectors developed at Lincoln Laboratory deployed in powerful telescope
• 14 Nov 08 UT: First Images of Asteroid 2008 TC3 Impact Aftermath.
• 28 Oct 08 NewSci: Proto-humans mastered fire 790,000 years ago - see also The Frequency and Consequences of Cosmic Impacts Since the Demise of the Dinosaurs (280K PDF)
• 28 Oct 08 NASA: Closest Planetary System Hosts Two Asteroid Belts.
• 25 Oct 08 UT: Could Strange Mars Craters be from a Fallen Third Moon?
• 22 Oct 08 NewSci: Jupiter produced greatest pounding in Earth's history.
• 17 Oct 08 Space.com: Impact Crater Exhumed from Mars Ice
• 17 Oct 08 SpaceDaily: Rosetta Encounters Asteroid (2867) Steins
• 26 Sep 08 Association of Space Explorers (ASE): Asteroid Threats: A Call for Global Response (PDF)
• 20 Sep 08 BBC: Europe plans asteroid sample grab.
• 20 Sep 08 NewSci: Controversial dwarf planet finally named 'Haumea'.
• 10 Sep 08b TPS: Rosetta Unearths a "Jewel of the Solar System".
• 6 Sep 08 SpaceDaily: Russia warns of asteroid threat.
• 6 Sep 08 ESA: Rosetta Steins fly-by confirmed.
• 3 Sep 08 The Rosetta Blog - online coverage of asteorid fly-by. UT: Countdown to Asteroid Flyby.
• 26 Aug 08 TPS: Support The Planetary Society Phobos LIFE Project - urgent request for donations to send microbes on a round trip to the Martian moon to test the transpermia hypothesis.
• 26 Aug 08 UT: Rosetta Prepares for Meet-Up With Asteroid Next Week + How To Save the World From Asteroid Impact: Plastic Wrap (but see this article about deflection techniques - "with such a reflector it is hard to steer -- it can only apply a force directly away from the sun, which is the least helpful direction" + The Register: Aussie has answer to save Earth from asteroid attack.
• 26 Aug 08 BBC: Sky survey yields new cosmic haul.
• 24 Aug 08 Icarus ($): Volume 197, Issue 1
• Nonuniform cratering of the terrestrial planets
• Formation of smooth terrains on Comet Tempel 1
• Stardust findings favor not only the planetary origin of comets but the underlying close-binary cosmogony of the Solar System as well 
• The formation of the Oort cloud in open cluster environments
• Similarities between the shergottites and terrestrial ferropicrites
• 20 Aug 08 PR-Inside: Tsunami Memories - Prehistoric Asteroid-Collision on Earth - It would also have killed everything, or almost everything, that was alive at that time on land or near the ocean surface... Related Science article & here
• 19 Aug 08 Themis: Big Blast - Tunguska-like airburst on Mars?
• 19 Aug 08 NewSci: First object seen from solar system's inner Oort cloud.
• 19 Aug 08 UT: Astronomers Find a New "Minor Planet" near Neptune
• 5 Aug 08 UT: Rosetta Begins Tracking Asteroid Steins for Flyby.
• 30 Jul 08 NewSci: 'Gravity tractor' could deflect asteroids, NASA study says.
• 30 Jul 08 Space.com: Small Satellite Designed to Spot Big Bad Asteroids.
• 28 Jun 08 NewSci: Tunguska: The day the sky exploded.
• 27 Jun 08 Space.com: Bits of Ancient Earth Hidden on the Moon (see Transpermia) + Life Survived Catastrophic Space Rock Impact  (see also Asteroids - now for the good news)
• 27 Jun 08 NewSci: Ancient impact may have created deep niche for life.
• 26 Jun 08 Nature: Asteroid smash turned Mars into 'takeaway pizza' planet + The hole at the bottom of the Moon + The burger bar that saved the world (interviews with key Spaceguard people) + Tunguska at 100 (by Duncan Steel) + All craters great and small.
• 26 Jun 08 iTunes video: Scientific Results of NASA's Deep Impact Mission  by Jay Melosh, LPL Evening Lecture Series (Free)
• 22 Jun 08 Livescience: Asteroid Gravity Tractor Idea: Funded Study.
• 15 Jun 08 NewSci ($): Roadside crater should have made more of an impact + The Ordovician: Life's second big bang - This revealed a sudden rise in biodiversity around 467 million years ago, just as the area was being bombarded. "It matches the asteroid data more or less precisely..."
• 5 Jun 08 SpaceRef: National Aeronautics and Space Administration Authorization Act of 2008 - Section VIII has NEOs (thanks David Morrison):  The Congress reaffirms the policy direction established in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Authorization Act of 2005 (Public Law 109-155) for NASA to detect, track, catalogue, and characterize the physical characteristics of near-Earth objects equal to or greater than 140 meters in diameter. ..
• 2 Jun 08 Acta Astronautica ($): Main belt asteroid sample return mission using solar electric propulsion + Rosetta in the year of the swing-bys.
• 16 May 08 Space.com: Space Rocks Could Reseed Life on Earth (see also Your Ancestors May Be Martian)
• 15 May 08 The Atlantic: The Sky Is Falling - Oceanic impact research by Dallas Abbott and many other NEO topics.
• 8 May 08 UT: NASA Considers Manned Asteroid Mission + Asteroid Impact Created a Worldwide Rain of Carbon Beads + Did Earth Have More Than One Moon? + Comet Strikes Increase as We Pass Through the Galactic Plane
• 6 May 08 SpaceDaily: Did The Solar System Bounce And Kill Off The Dinosaurs[?] - The sun's movement through the Milky Way regularly sends comets hurtling into the inner solar system - coinciding with mass life extinctions on earth, a new study claims. Scientists at the Cardiff Centre for Astrobiology built a computer model of our solar system's movement and found that it "bounces" up and down through the plane of the galaxy. (see also Shiva Hypothesis)
• 3 May 08 NewSci: Did dinosaur-killing asteroid ignite an oily tinderbox? (note that the fires caused by re-entry of ballistic material would have been very patchy)
• 26 Apr 08 NewSci (Jan08): Comet samples are surprisingly asteroid-like (thanks Oliver Manuel)
• 13 Apr 08 EPSL ($): Main Deccan volcanism phase ends near the K–T boundary: Evidence from the Krishna–Godavari Basin, SE India "These results suggest that volcanism may have played critical roles in both the K–T mass extinction and the delayed biotic recovery" + Did a mega-collision dry Venus' interior? + 4 ± 1.5 °C abrupt warming 11,270 yr ago identified from trapped air in Greenland ice (does not seem to consider an impact as a cause)
• 11 Apr 08 Science ($): Determining Chondritic Impactor Size from the Marine Osmium Isotope Record - "Using this method, the authors constrain the size of the end Cretaceous (4 to 6 kilometers) and Eocene (3 kilometers) impactors."
• 24 Mar 08 ABC: Stinking seas not to blame for (P/T) mass extinctions: scientists
• 20 Mar 08 WSJ: Keeping the Earth Asteroid-Free Takes Science, Soft Touch Ex-astronaut Rusty Schweickart wants to save the world from an incoming asteroid... + Science ($): Preparing for Doomsday (thanks David Morrison)
• 20 Mar 08 UT: Geologist Finds a Meteorite Crater in Google Earth + Ancient Asteroids Discovered
• 19 Mar 08 ABC: Sci-fi guru Arthur C Clarke dies - there are many references to Sir Arthur on these pages.
• 17 Mar 08 UT: Life Thrived After More Than 100 Meteorites Struck the Earth  [comment: If most  of these "meteorites " (actually asteroids/comets or my preference microplanets) were around 1km in size then many microscopic lifeforms would be unrattled - at least on a global scale. One such impact every 10,000 years gives plenty of time for recovery. It is "higher" organisms that build dwellings on coastal flats and rely on just-in-time food supplies that are vulnerable to these minor impacts.]
• 13 Mar 08 NewSci: Meteorite pair may be remnants of a destroyed dwarf planet.
• 13 Mar 08 BBC: Peru meteorite may rewrite rules. + NewSci: Swarm of meteorites may solve Peru mystery.
• 12 Mar 08 Space.com: Mysterious Craters Seen on Mercury + Big Crater Carved By Mysterious Meteorite (the Peru event - it was a tiny crater)
• 12 Mar 08 Nature: They really were the Dark Ages - A massive volcanic eruption brought gloom to the post-Roman world.
• 10 Mar 08 SpaceDaily: The Tunguska Meteorite As A Warning From Outer Space.
• 7 Mar 08 Science ($): Experts Find No Evidence for a Mammoth-Killer Impact - A devastating cosmic collision 13,000 years ago continues to play well in the media, but specialists are challenging the grounds for thinking it happened.
• 7 Mar 08 Nature: 'Death Star' found pointing at Earth - Star-system explosion could threaten life on Earth.
• 27 Feb 08 BBC: US team wins asteroid competition ... run by the Planetary Society: Planetary Society Names Winners of $50,000 Asteroid Tagging Competition
• 25 Feb 08 SciAm: NASA's Flimsy Argument for Nuclear Weapons (deflection of asteroids)
• 15 Feb 08 Space.com: Triple Asteroid Found Near Earth.
• 12 Feb 08 NewSci ($): Mass extinctions: The microbes strike back
• 11 Feb 08 UT: Another Asteroid Passes Close to Earth - only 10 metres across and missed us by 135,000km  but only discovered 2 days earlier.
• 2 Feb 08 Space.com: Space Rock Misses Mars, Barely.
• 2 Feb 08 UT: Recovering from a Mass Extinction is Slow Going
• 1 Feb 08 NewSci ($): Meteorites: How big is safe?
• 28 Jan 08 Space.com: Killer Space Rock Theory Is Soaking Wet. (see also Did Asteroid-Induced Firestorm Destroy the Dinosaurs?)
• 28 Jan 08 SpaceDaily: Meteor impacts can have subtle effects (see also Environmental effects)
• 28 Jan 08 NewSci: Comet samples are surprisingly asteroid-like + Largest asteroid to come near Earth in 22 years.
• 24 SMH: Martians in for some contact sport (dubious report that overlooked NASA's last estimate of 1 in 10,000 chance of impact) + IEEE Spectrum: No Asteroid Impact on Mars After All
• 24 Jan 08 Slashdot: Asteroid Missions May Replace Lunar Base Plans + Popular Mechanics: Dissent Grows as Scientists Oppose NASA’s New Moon Mission (page title is "Planetary Society Criticizes NASA's Manned Moon Plan")
• 24 Jan 08 UT: When Do Asteroids Turn Dangerous? + Near Earth Asteroid 2007 TU24 Will Make a Close Approach on January 29, 2008
• 13 Jan 08 Space.com: Space Rock [probably] Won't Wallop Mars, Scientists Say. Odds now 1 in 10,000 after further observations narrow down its path.
• 4 Jan 08 Space.com: Asteroid's [possible] Martian Impact: What Might Happen. (currently a 1 in 28 chance of impact)
• 27 Dec 07 Us Govt: Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) – Status of the Survey Program and Review of NASA’s Report to Congress (thanks Rusty Schweickart - see also 13 Nov item)
• 24 Dec 07 Spaceviz: New video Planetary Defense. Features David Morrison  (NASA AMES), Duncan Steel (Space Researcher, Author), Brigadier General Simon P. Worden (USAF, Retired), Donald K. Yeomans (NASA Manager, JPL NEO Program), Clark Chapman (SwRI), Daniel Scheeres (University of Michigan), Michael A'Hearn (Deep Impact, Principal Investigator, University of Maryland), Steven Ostro (JPL, Radar Research), Grant Stokes (LINEAR), Alan W. Harris (DLR, Berlin), Alan W. Harris (SSI), Robert J. Whiteley (University of Arizona), Richard Binzel (MIT), Michael Belton (BSEI, Belton Space Exploration Initiatives), Sir Arthur C. Clarke (Author, "2001: A Space Odyssey"), Freeman J. Dyson (Physicist Emeritus, Princeton), David H. Levy (Co-Disoverer of 'Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9' which impacted with Jupiter in 1994),  Rusty Schweickart (Apollo 9 astronaut, Chairman ASE Committee on NEO's)  - many of these people were signatories to the  letter from 91 scientists to former Prime Minister John Howard in 2002.
• 22 Dec 07 LA times: Asteroid on track for possible Mars hit - 1 in 75 chance of an impact on 30 January 2008 (thanks David Morrison) + TPS: Space rock could strike Mars.
• 21 Dec 07 Space.com: Small Asteroids Pose Big New Threat.
• 21 Dec 07 Springer publications - new book: Comet/Asteroid Impacts and Human Society - An Interdisciplinary Approach (thanks David Morrison) Extract: RECENT PERSPECTIVES  ON THE HAZARD OF AN ASTEROID IMPACT by  Clark R. Chapman
• 20 Dec 07 NewSci: Small asteroids can pack a mighty punch - a computer simulation by Mark Boslough of Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico shows that a 30-metre asteroid could have been behind the Tunguska blast. That suggests smaller asteroids can do more damage than previously thought...(see also The Frequency and Consequences of Cosmic Impacts Since the Demise of the Dinosaurs)
• 18 Dec 07 TPS: The Nov/Dec issue of Planetary Report has an excellent article by Andre Bormanis "Worlds Beyond" (not available online) that describes proposals for manned missions to Near Earth Asteroids.
• 18 Dec 07 Space.com: The Enduring Mysteries of Asteroids.
• 14 Dec 07 NewSci ($): Mapping the sky: No star unturned - By around 2020, astronomers say, practically all the asteroids, stars and galaxies that ground-based telescopes could possibly see will be ticked off and catalogued....[?]
• 12 Dec 07 BBC: Great beasts peppered from space - forget about "smoking guns" - if verified, these are the bullets!
• 9 Dec 07 New Scientist ($): Did a comet kick-start Earth's plate tectonics?  This article is also a good example of the benefits of using the term microplanet for "comets and asteroids". See also Asteroid May Have Created Hawaii
• 7 Dec 07 NewSci ($): Mass extinctions: The Armageddon factor.
• 7 Dec 07 BBC: Meteorite dates lunar volcanoes.
• 25 Nov 07 The Age: Howard concedes election ... [opinion]  some 11 years after he cancelled the Australian Spaceguard program. 100s of Near Earth Asteroids have passed through southern skies unnoticed in that time. Some may pose a future threat to Earth and up to 11 years will have been lost in mitigating that threat.  
• 17 Nov 07 Space.com: Leonid Meteor Shower Peaks This Weekend - see also Leonid page
• 16 Nov 07 SpaceDaily: Predicting Apophis' Earth Encounters In 2029 And 2036.
• 12 Nov 07 NewSci: NASA blasted for ignoring smaller asteroids + NASA: Congressional Hearings on NEO Survey Programs (testimonies)
• 6 Nov 07 NewSci: Dazzling comet outburst continues to mystify.
• 3 Nov 07 SpaceDaily: Catch A Comet - No Telescope Required.
• 29 Oct 07 SpaceDaily: Protecting Earth Against Asteroids
• 13 Oct 07 NewSci: Are mirrors the best way to deflect asteroids?
• 13 Oct 07 Space.com: NASA's Dawn Asteroid Probe Tests Ion Engine.
• 13 Oct 07 MIT (pending): Asteroid is "practice case" for potential hazards.
• 8 Oct 07 NewSci: Did an ancient impact bowl Pluto over?
• 8 Oct 07 Space.com: Potentially Threatening Space Rock Rediscovered + Fireball in the Sky Spotted in Minnesota, Iowa.
• 8 Oct 07 BBC: Mirrors 'could deflect' asteroids (See also Defending Earth) 
• 4 Oct 07 Space.com: Comet's Tail Tames Sun's Fury  + Group Renames Asteroid for George Takei ("Sulu" from Star Trek)
• 4 Oct 07 SpaceDaily: Asteroid Flyby In 2029 Still A Concern Warns Russian Astronomer.
• 29 Sep 07 NewSci: Mysteries remain over Peru meteorite impact.
• 29 Sep 07 EPSL ($): Isotopic fractionation of germanium in iron meteorites + Shock-induced metallic iron nanoparticles in olivine-rich Martian meteorites (there could be pure iron nanoparticles in martian rocks) + Disruption of the L chondrite parent body.
• 28 Sep 07 SpaceDaily: Blowing A Hole In A Comet: Take 2.
• 26 Sep 07 New Scientist: Earth's water brewed at home, not in space + Odd object blurs line between comets and asteroids (see also Microplanet)
• 26 Sep 07 MIT tether could aid asteroid missions (link pending)
• 26 Sep 07 JPL: NASA [Dawn] Spacecraft is a 'Go' for Asteroid Belt.
• 21 Sep 07 New Sci ($): Moon's gentle surface could hide life's secrets (ancient Earth rocks scattered to the Moon) + Radiation in the clear over dinosaur deaths.
• 21 Sep 07 Houston Chronicle: Meteorite likely caused crater in Peru (thanks David Morrison)
• 19 Sep 07 ABC: Locals fall sick after meteorite lands in Peru.
• 17 Sep 07 UT: The Triangle that Skimmed Past the Earth [in 2002]: Asteroid 2002 NY40.
• 17 Aug 07 NewSci: Did life begin on comets?
• 14 Sep 07 BBC: Neanderthal climate link debated.
• 7 Sep 07 NewSci ($): Cosmic 'baby bouncer' could tie astronauts to asteroids.
• 6 Sep 07 NewSci: World's biggest digital camera to join asteroid search + Discovered: The asteroid that killed off the dinosaurs  + Space.com: Dino-Killing Asteroid Traced to Cosmic Collision.
• 1 Sep 07 BBC: UK plan to track asteroid threat.
• 27 Aug 07 New Scientist: Jupiter increases risk of comet strike on Earth.
• 23 Aug 07 Wired Magazine: Ex-Astronaut's Lonely Mission: Save Earth From Asteroid Strike (thanks David Morrison)
• 23 Aug 07 NASA NEO News: DID AN EXPLODING COMET KILL NORTH AMERICAN MEGAFAUNA AT END OF LAST ICE AGE? 
• 23 Aug 07 AIAA: Searching out a cosmic disaster...and opportunity (thanks David Morrison)
• 16 Aug 07 UT: Did an Exploding Comet Cause Extinctions 13,000 Years Ago? NSF news release. See also environmental effects of impacts
• 11 Aug 07 Space.com: 'Great Show': Perseid Meteor Shower Peaks Sunday Night + Tips + BBC: Stargazers set sights on meteors.
• 10 Aug 07 Universe Today: An Experiment to Test Panspermia. - see also Transpermia.
• 10 Aug 07 New Scientist ($): Drill into asteroids to stop them hitting Earth.
• 5 Aug 07 New Scientist: Asteroid deflection - Clark Chapman responds to comments about the gravity tractor proposal (also search this page for "tug")
• 31 Jul 07 Space.com: NASA Insiders Propose Stepping Stone Path to Deep Space - human missions to  NEOs
• 25 Jul 07 Economist: The threat from outer space - The ultimate environmental catastrophe ... perhaps the biggest problem is humanity’s indifference. (thanks David Morrison)
• 14 Jul 07 NASA NEO News: Request for Congressional Hearing & other Reactions to NASA NEO Report.
• 14 Jul 07 NewSci ($): Comment: How not to save the planet (Clark Chapman on NASA's asteroid plans)
• 6 Jun 07 NASA: 2006 Near-Earth Object Survey and Deflection Study: Final Report + Clark Chapman: Critique of "2006 Near-Earth Object Survey and Deflection Study: Final Report"  Published 28 Dec. 2006 by NASA Hq. Program Analysis & Evaluation Office (Word doc) + Summary and Recommendations from AIAA Planetary Defense Conference (thanks David Morrison)
• 30 May 07 Space.com: Ex-Astronaut Says NASA Asteroid Report Flawed - "NASA basically pulled off a federal agency version of civil disobedience"
• 22 May 07 BBC: Ice Age blast 'ravaged America' - see also The Frequency and Consequences of Cosmic Impacts Since the Demise of the Dinosaurs
• 25 Apr 07 Space.com: Out-of-This-World Hypothesis: Cosmic Forces Control Life on Earth - see also Shiva Hypothesis.
• 20 Apr 07 PSRD: Cosmochemical studies and dynamical models of protoplanetary collisions suggest a new origin for iron meteorites.
• 20 Apr 07 Icarus ($): Photometric analysis and disk-resolved thermal modeling of Comet 19P/Borrelly from Deep Space 1 data + Albedo and size determination of potentially hazardous asteroids: (99942) Apophis - we find that Apophis has a diameter of 270±60 m, slightly smaller than preliminary estimates...
• 19 Apr 07 NewSci: Ancient impact may have bowled the Moon over.
• 12 Apr 07 Space.com: Software Models Consequences Of Asteroid Strikes - see also this simulation. Note the latest one appears to exaggerate the consequences of impact tsunami (200m asteroid do not cause ocean-wide tsunami) + Uni Southampton: New research tool indicates those countries most at risk of 'small' asteroid impact.
• 9 Apr 07 SpaceDaily: Deep Impact Extended Mission Could Probe Deeper Into Solar System Origin.
• 7 Apr 07 EPSL: Chromium isotopic studies of terrestrial impact craters: Identification of meteoritic components at Bosumtwi, Clearwater East, Lappajärvi, and Rochechouart + High- and low-latitude orbital forcing of early hominin habitats in South Africa (see also The Frequency and Consequences of Cosmic Impacts Since the Demise of the Dinosaurs ) + Non-chondritic magnesium and the origins of the inner terrestrial planets + Paleophysiology and end-Permian mass extinction.
• 6 Apr 07 SpaceDaily: Searching For The Grandest Asteroid Tour.
• 3 Apr 07 UT: Double Asteroids Revealed as Twin Piles of Rubble.
• 31 Mar 07 BBC: UK impact crater debate heats up.
• 29 Mar 07 SMH: It was a meteorite, not a satellite, says Russia. 
• 27 Mar 07 Space.com: Green Comet Spotted Down Under + Astronomers Puzzled by Titan's Missing Craters.
• 27 Mar 07 Space Review: Asteroid [manned] missions: be patient, or bring lotsa gas + Full paper.
• 20 Mar 07 Space Review: The three D’s of planetary defense.
• 20 Mar 07 SpaceDaily: Near-Earth Object Survey And Defintion Analysis Of Alternatives Report To Congress.
• 19 Mar 07 BBC: [6km impact] 'Crater' spied under California.
• 16 Mar 07 New Scientist: Did a giant impact create the two faces of Mars?
• 15 Mar 07 BBC: [piloted] Asteroid mission concept unveiled.
• 15 Mar 07 EPSL: The Martian meteorite paradox: Climatic influence on impact ejection from Mars?
• 15 Mar 07 Icarus: Size, albedo, and taxonomic type of potential spacecraft target Asteroid (10302) 1989 ML - a very attractive target for rendezvous missions + Composition of hydrated near-Earth object (100085) 1992 UY4 (water in near space!) +
• 13 Mar 07 The Planetary Society: Defending the Planet "a human mission to a NEO ...a valuable and exciting step in the Vision for Space Exploration. To see astronauts bounding across those low-gravity objects, determining their composition and physical properties and bringing back pieces to Earth, would sure be exciting. The mission requires interplanetary travel, and thus in many ways is a better precursor to Mars missions than are lunar missions. And they are in many ways easier than lunar missions, which require complex landings and surface operations" + The Planetary Society Awards Asteroid Trackers Gene Shoemaker Near Earth Object Grants Given to Researchers from Canada, China, French Polynesia, Italy, and the United States +  Funding Woes Halt Plans to Search Out Potential “Killer” Asteroids. "The ONLY facility on Earth that can track very close Near-Earth Objects, the Arecibo radio telescope, may soon be terminated by the U.S. National Science Foundation..."
• 10 Mar 07 EPSL ($): Chicxulub impact predates K–T boundary: New evidence from Brazos, Texas - see mass extinctions.
• 8 Mar 07 Space.com: NASA Can't Afford Hunt for Killer Asteroids -  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 20,000 potentially hazardous asteroids and comets by 2020 would be about $1 billion, according to a report NASA will release later this week.
• 8 Mar 07 New Scientist: Sunshine puts asteroids in a spin.
• 25 Feb 07 ESO:  The Celestial Whirligig - Unique Observations of Comet McNaught Reveal Sprinkling Nucleus
• 23 Feb 07 Icarus:  Volume 187, Issue 1 is devoted to the Deep Impact mission.
• 19 Feb 07 USA Today ($ + very annoying ad): Cosmic rock stars - "As steppingstones to Mars, (asteroids) are a really good way to learn to leave the comfort of the Earth-moon system..." + The Register: UN urged to adopt asteroid impact treaty. (thanks David Morrison)
• 19 Feb 07 New Scientist: Asteroid threat demands response, experts warn.
• 18 Feb 07 BBC:  Action plan for killer asteroids - see also Defending Earth.
• 18 Jan 07 BBC: Dwarf planet 'becoming a comet' [in several million years]
• 12 Jan 07 EPSL ($): Evidence for a  200–100 ka meteorite impact in the Western Desert of Egypt.
• 5 Jan 07 Space.com: NASA: Help Us Spot Moon Meteorites [flashes caused by meteoroid impacts with Moon]
• 30 Dec 06 NASA NEO News: Arecibo Radar Threatened & Possible Human Flights to NEAs + CNN: Finances cloud future of 'Contact' telescope - "a looming cut in U.S. government financing"..."By bouncing radio waves off asteroids, it also charts their location, speed, course and some other characteristics...". See also SpaceDaily: Radar Love: Asteroid Detection And Science - "microwaves from the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico reached out and touched asteroid Apophis on Jan. 27, 29, and 30, 2005. The Arecibo data significantly improved the asteroid's orbital estimate, ruling out a potential Earth collision in 2029. The 1,000-foot diameter Arecibo telescope is one of only two places in the world where radar astronomy is effectively performed. The other is at the 70-meter Goldstone antenna in California's Mojave Desert. The two instruments are complementary. The Arecibo radar is not fully steerable (while Goldstone is), but it is 30 times more sensitive. Together they make a formidable asteroid reconnaissance team...". Comment: The ill-advised budget cuts at Arecibo radio telescope are similar the Australian government's cancellation  the Australian component of Spaceguard in 1996.
• 28 Dec 06 UT: Close Call with Asteroid 2006 XG1 in 2041 - 670m diameter space rock with a 1 in 77,000 chance of hitting the Earth on 31 Oct 2041 (NASA calcs). Further observations will likely eliminate any risk of collision.
• 28 Dec 06 Space.com: Orion Hardware Reviewed For Human Asteroid Flight - see also Riches in the rubble of the Solar System
• 24 Dec 06 EPSL (abs): Carbon isotopic compositions of organic matter across continental Cretaceous–Tertiary (K–T) boundary sections: Implications for paleoenvironment after the K–T impact event - freshwater environments (in contrast to marine environments) recovered rapidly enough to almost immediately (within 10 yr) respond to the impact-related environmental perturbations + Oxygen isotope constraints on the origin and differentiation of the Moon + Extraterrestrial chromite in the resurge deposits of the early Late Ordovician Lockne crater, central Sweden.
• 22 Dec 06 SpaceDaily: Radar Love: Asteroid Detection And Science. + Russia Set To Implement Ambitious Space Program - ground samples from Phobos, one of Mars' two moons...
• 12 Dec 06 Space Review: Can we detect asteroid impacts with rocky extrasolar planets? - by co-incidence, see also The Rise of a Giant [Telescope] "With a diameter of 42 m and its adaptive optics concept, the E-ELT will be more than one hundred times more sensitive than the present-day largest optical telescopes..."
• 30 Nov 06 Universe Today: Just a Single Asteroid Strike Wiped out the Dinosaurs
• 28 Nov 06 Space.com: Galactic Baby Boom Influenced Life on Earth (gamma ray bursts)
• 28 Nov 06 ABC: 'Fireball' shoots across South Australian sky.
• 24 Nov 06 ABC: Earth hit by 'mass extinction' 250m yrs ago.  See also Impacts and mass extinctions
• 17 Nov 06 Space.com: NASA Studies Manned Asteroid Mission - see also Riches in the rubble of the Solar System + Strong Leonid Meteor Shower Expected This Weekend.
• 16 Nov 06 SpaceDaily: 'KW4' Not A Threat To Earth - At Least For A Thousand Years.
• 16 Nov 06: Asteroid tsunami items.
• 8 Nov 06 EPSL: Analyses of shocked quartz at the global K-P boundary indicate an origin from a single, high-angle, oblique impact at Chicxulub - We conclude that some of the more extreme predictions of the environmental consequences of a low-angle impact at Chicxulub are probably not applicable...
• 27 Oct 06 Space.com: Harnessing Asteroids and Comets to Travel the Solar System. See also Riches in the Rubble...
• 19 Oct 06 Space.com: Radar Helps Locate Meteorite in Kansas + Strong Leonid Meteor Shower Expected Nov 18 (see Leonids news & links)
• 15 Oct 06 UT: New Telescope Will Search for Asteroids and Map Out the Universe.
• 11 Oct 06 BBC: Fresh look at dwarf planet Ceres.
• 10 Oct 06 BBC: UK to join 'killer' asteroid hunt.
• 2 Oct 06 EPSL (abs): Chicxulub impact event is Cretaceous/Paleogene boundary in age: New micropaleontological evidence.
• 4 Sep 06 Planetary Society: SMART-1 Mission Goes Out With a Bang +  Apophis Mission Design Competition - Will Apophis pass through the "keyhole," the small area on its 2029 path that would cause it to hit Earth on its next orbit in 2036? We have to find out, because if an impact is likely to occur, we're going to need all the time possible to plan and implement space missions to deflect it away from Earth.
• 24 Aug 06 SpaceDaily: Has The Mariner Meteor Mystery Been Solved?
• 21 Aug 06 New Scientist: Three new planets may join solar system - The result is radical. "If gravity can make it round, it's a planet," Binzel told New Scientist. That is not quite the whole story – planets also have to orbit a star, and not be either stars themselves or satellites of other planets – but the new part of the definition is roundness...Pluto and Charon would become the first double planet in the solar system. This was suggested in 2000!
• 10 Aug 06 TPS: 2006 Shoemaker NEO Grant Applications Now Available.
• 24 Jul 06 EPSL: Volatile fluxes during flood basalt eruptions and potential effects on the global environment: A Deccan perspective - atmospheric perturbations associated with SO2 emissions from just one of these long-lasting eruptions were likely to have been severe, and constantly augmented over a decade or longer. By contrast, the amounts of CO2 released would have been small compared with the mass already present in the atmosphere, and thus much more limited in effect [global warming]. (more at CCNet)
• 24 Jul 06 PSRD: Iron Meteorites as the Not-So-Distant Cousins of Earth.
• 20 Jul 06 BBC: Tut's gem hints at space impact.
• 17 Jul 06 SciAm: Deep Impact Reveals Comet's Components.
• 17 Jul 06 SpaceDaily: Scientists Gaining Clearer Picture of Comet Makeup and Origin.
• 3 Jul 06 ABC: Asteroid to narrowly miss Earth (quotes from Rob McNaught and Gordon Garradd - "The two men are the only professional astronomers in the southern hemisphere looking for hazards from deep space.")
• 1 Jul 06 Space.com: Asteroid Spotting: Skywatchers to Glimpse Close Flyby. It will be early Monday afternoon in Australia. Spaceweather.com tips. 2004 XP14 Planning for radar observations by NASA. JPL data.
• 1 Jul 06 ESA: Kepler Crater as seen by SMART-1 - animation.
• 30 Jun 06 YouTube: When the meteorite collides with the earth - Japanese animation of a giant impact with Earth - thanks Steve Ward for URL tip. See also "Related videos" on this page.
• 29 Jun 06 Space.com: Asteroid Defense: NASA to Formulate Planetary Protection Plan.
• 27 Jun 06 Space.com: Huge Asteroid to Fly Past Earth July 3.
• 22 Jun 06 Space.com: New Cosmic Defense Idea: Fight Asteroids with Asteroids  (see item from 10 Jun below)
• 17 Jun 06 Space.com: Neptune Linked to Potential Swarm of Asteroids.
• 16 Jun 06 NewSci: Mars rover Spirit finds metallic meteorites.
• 16 Jun 06 Space.com: Supercomputer Takes on a Cosmic Threat - "Keeping tabs on Golevka has helped pin down the Yarkovsky Effect"
• 13 Jun 06 Aftenposten (Norway): Record meteorite hit Norway - As Wednesday morning dawned, northern Norway was hit with an impact comparable to the atomic bomb used on Hiroshima [?]. Thanks Space.com
• 12 Jun 06 SpaceDaily: Corkscrew Asteroid About To Leave The Local Earth Neighborhood - Earth has a "second moon." Asteroid 2003 YN107 is looping around our planet once a year. Measuring only 20 meters across, the asteroid is too small to see with the unaided eye - but it is there (discovered 7 years ago)
• 10 Jun 06 Acta Astronautica (abs): A captured asteroid : Our David's stone for shielding earth and providing the cheapest extraterrestrial material - see also Riches from the Rubble.
• 8 Jun 06 ABC Science: Killer crater may have spawned Australia [Claimed PT extinction, but where is the thick layer ejecta that would be expected at the Graphite Peak P/T outcrop in Antarctica?] - see also debate at CCNet.
• 20 May 06 Icarus (abs): Optimal deflection of NEOs en route of collision with the Earth + Earth/Moon impact rate comparison: Searching constraints for lunar secondary/primary cratering proportion.
• 20 May 06 ESA: ESA’s new camera follows disintegration of a comet.
• 20 May 06 UT: Searching For Crater Chains on the Earth.
• 17 May 06 Space.com: NASA to Look into NEO Threat Response Proposals - "The U.S. Congress has declared that the general welfare and security of the United States require that the unique competence of NASA be directed to detecting, tracking, cataloguing, and characterizing near-Earth asteroids and comets in order to provide warning and mitigation of the potential hazard of such near-Earth objects to the Earth..."  (see also Rocks from Space)
• 16 May 06 SpaceDaily: Crumbling Comet Has NASA Scientists Looking For Crater Chains + Crack-Up Comet Emitting X-Rays + Palomar Movie Tracks Crumbling Comet
• 13 May 06 New Scientist: Tsunami risk of asteroid strikes revealed - see also asteroid tsunami. Natural Hazards: A Quantitative Assessment of the Human and Economic Hazard from Impact-generated Tsunami.
• 12 May 06 Space.com: Comet Breakup Points to Possible Meteor Shower in 2022 + Viewing Guide.
• 11 May 06 Caltech: A Million Comet Pieces - Comet 73P/Schwassman-Wachmann 3 skimming along a trail of debris left during its multiple trips around the sun.
• 11 May 06 Nature (abs): Neptune's capture of its moon Triton in a binary–planet gravitational encounter + Discovery of a 25-cm asteroid clast in the giant Morokweng impact crater, South Africa + BBC article.
• 4 May 06 UT: Tracking Meteoroid Impacts on the Moon.
• 28 Apr 06 NewSci: Taking out a killer asteroid – with a tame one (see also Rocks from Space)
• 24 Apr 06 SpaceDaily: Deflecting Asteroids Difficult But Possible (see also Rocks from Space) + One-Of-A-Kind Meteorite Unveiled.
• 22 Apr 06 Space.com: Cosmic Collisions: A Striking New Planetarium Show.
• 22 Apr 06 EPSL: Applications of twin analysis to studying meteorite impact structures
• 7 Apr 06 UT: Deep Impact Caused a Great Gush of Water Vapour - space resources!
• 2 Apr 06 Astrobiology Magazine: Are We Drinking Comet Water?
• 1 Apr 06 NewSci: Impact suspected for loss of Russian satellite + Moon Special: The ultimate lab + Moon Special: In search of terrestrial fossils. Comment: While the plans for a return to the Moon (NS 1 April 2006) are worthy of support, some of the justifications apply equally to several Near Earth Asteroids that are easier the reach, and far safer to land on, than the Moon. Asteroids are much richer in minerals, metals and water than the surface of the Moon. Future generations are likely to be astounded that we overlooked these rich resources in space. In the same issue Peter Ward puts forward another reason going to the Moon. I hope that he is correct in his speculation that the surface of the Moon may be littered with Earth rocks containing ancient fossils. However, the gravity well of the Moon, and its lack of an atmosphere, ensure that nearly all incoming material hits the surface at vaporising speeds (this is also a hazard for astronauts, of course, in the event of a descent rocket failure).
• 1 Apr 06 Space.com: Saturn's Rings Created by Collision.
• 30 Mar 06 SpaceDaily: Chicxulub Didnt Kill The Dinosaurs. But see How an asteroid impact causes extinction It is clear that the environment effects from Chicxulub were sufficient to cause the extinctions. LiveScience: Scientists Debate Dinosaur Demise.
• 28 Mar 06 SpaceDaily: NASA Reinstates Dawn Asteroid Mission.
• 28 Mar 06 Space.com: Lunar Lost & Found: The Search for Old Spacecraft [and their impact scars] + Broken Comet On Its Way.
• 20 Mar 06 Space Review: Asteroid turns hot potato: when NEO risk communication becomes uncommunicative - critical of the Torino Scale. Opinion: I don't agree with Benny Peiser's view that the scale is flawed. The revised wording of Category 2 on the Torino Scale is:"A discovery, which may become routine with expanded searches, of an object making a somewhat close but not highly unusual pass near the Earth. While meriting attention by astronomers, there is no cause for public attention or public concern as an actual collision is very unlikely. New telescopic observations very likely will lead to re-assignment to Level 0." This is entirely appropriate for the 2004 VD17 situation and it gives a clear message to journalists that the matter does not warrant media excitement. This does not, of course, stop some journalists from beating up the story. No information system will do that, short of not disclosing discoveries of potential impacts.
• 20 Mar 06 Space.com: Cosmic Collisions: A Striking New Planetarium Show
• 19 Mar 06 Small selection from LPSC2006: Evidence for a Possible Late Pliocene Impact in the Ross Sea, Antarctica + Extraterrestrial Chromium at the Graphite Peak P/Tr boundary and in the Bedout Impact Melt Breccia +  THERMAL RADIATION ON THE GROUND FROM LARGE AERIAL BURSTS CAUSED BY TUNGUSKA-LIKE IMPACTS + NUMERICAL MODELING OF IMPACT-INDUCED HYDROTHERMAL ACTIVITY AT THE CHICXULUB CRATER + PRESERVATION OF BIOLOGICAL SIGNATURE WITHIN IMPACT MELT BRECCIAS, HAUGHTON IMPACT STRUCTURE + SIMPLE DEVICES FOR CONCENTRATION OF MICROBIAL LIFE: EXPERIMENTS IN HAUGHTON IMPACT STRUCTURES: FRESH GULLIES IN DIRTY SNOW, DEVON ISLAND, HIGH ARCTIC, AS ENDMEMBER ANALOGS + SURFACE MINERAL CRUSTS: A PRIORITY TARGET IN SEARCH FOR LIFE ON MARS + ...
• 19 Mar 06 Uni Tennessee: Suspected Earth Impact Sites - new online database.
• 15 Mar 06 BBC: Comets 'are born of fire and ice'.
• 15 Mar 06 Space.com: New Source Suspected for Ancient [iron] Meteorites.
• 11 Mar 06 NewSci: Pluto's moons share a family resemblance.
• 8 Mar 06 Space.com: Japan Contacts Troubled Asteroid Probe.
• 8 Mar 06 ABC: Earth in grip of mass extinction: scientists - Scientists say Earth is experiencing the largest mass extinction in 65 million years.
• 6 Mar 06 SpaceDaily: Mile Wide Asteroid Passes Close On Monday + Largest Impact Crater In The Sahara Discovered.
• 5 Mar 06 Steve Ward: New movies of encounter with asteroid Apophis in 2036: Apophis strikes the Pacific ocean just north of Panama + Apophis zooms by Earth missing by just 2500 km.
• 3 Mar 06 Space.com: Asteroid Has Minor Chance of Hitting Earth in Century.
• 2 Mar 06 JPL: Asteroid 2004 VD17 added to potential impactor list - about 500m in diameter it has a 1 in 1000 chance of hitting the Earth on May 4, 2102. It currently has a Torino rating of 2. Further observations will likely elimiinate this risk  (thanks David Morrison). ACC info.
• 25 Feb 06 Space.com: See it Now: New Comet Brightens Rapidly.
  
• 23 Feb 06 American Museum of Natural History: Coming mid-march "Cosmic Collisions"
  
• 23 Feb 06 Nature: A giant impact origin for Pluto's small moons and satellite multiplicity in the Kuiper belt.
• 16 Feb 06 PSS abstracts: The size distribution of trans-Neptunian bodies + An hexahedrite meteorite from the Campo del Cielo Fall + Accuracy of meteoroid speeds determined using a Fresnel transform procedure.
  
• 16 Feb 06 Nature: Iron meteorites as remnants of planetesimals formed in the terrestrial planet region.
  
• 11 Feb 06 SpaceDaily: Ancient Impacts Created Man In The Moon
  
• 5 Feb 06 UT: Rough and Tumble Hyperion. JPL movie of flyby.
  
• 5 Feb 06 GCA abstracts: The alteration of organic matter in response to ionising irradiation: Chemical trends and implications for extraterrestrial sample analysis + Experimental aqueous alteration of the Allende meteorite under
  oxidizing conditions: Constraints on asteroidal alteration + Crystallization rates of shock melts in three martian basalts: Experimental simulation with implications for meteoroid dimensions.
  
• 2 Feb 06 BBC: Distant world tops Pluto for size (planet or microplanet?) - Nature, Space.com.
• 2 Feb 06 Nature abstracts: The trans-neptunian object UB313 ["Xena"] is larger than Pluto + A low density of 0.8 g cm-3 for the Trojan binary asteroid 617 Patroclus. Space.com: Asteroids Near Jupiter are Really Comets.
  
• 29 Jan 06 JPL Stardust: Spectacular image of a particle that had penetrated the aluminum foil holding the aerogel block, leaving an impact crater in the foil and ejecta in the aerogel. A frozen micro-impact!
  
• 29 Jan 06 EPSL: Yamato 793321 CM chondrite: Dehydrated regolith material of a hydrous asteroid.
  
• 27 Jan 05 ABC: [Spaceguard supporter] DR KARL [Kruszelnicki] AWARDED ORDER OF AUSTRALIA.
  
• 24 Jan 06 Australian Science (paper only): MASS EXTINCTIONS: The Role of Asteroid Impacts in Australia by Andrew Glikson (thanks Duncan Steel)
  
• 24 Jan 06 Space.com: NASA Asteroid Mission Won't Launch This Year - A NASA spacecraft built to explore two of the solar system's largest asteroids won't launch this year because the space agency is dealing with cost overruns and technical issues in the project.
  
• 23 Jan 06 TPS: Donations sought for 2006 Shoemaker NEO Grants.
  
• 23 Jan 06 LPI: 69th Annual Meeting of the Meteoritical Society, to be held August 6–11, 2006, in Zürich, Switzerland.
  
• 22 Jan 06 Space.com: Space Debris a Growing Problem, NASA Report Says.
• 21 Jan 06 EPSL: The nature of the KT impactor. A 54Cr reappraisal + The Late Eocene 187Os / 188Os excursion: Chemostratigraphy, cosmic dust flux and the Early Oligocene glaciation + A new insight into the Hawaiian plume.
• 21 Jan 06 SpaceDaily: Ancient Mega Asteroid Dusted Earth.
  
• 21 Jan 06 NewSci: Rocky rings around Sun-like stars revealed + UT: Kuiper Belt-Like Disks Around Two Nearby Stars.
  
• 20 Jan 06 UT: Hit and Run Planets.
  
• 19 Jan 06 Spaceref.com: Catalina Sky Survey Tops 2005 NEO Discoveries. Seven CSS astronomers operate two telescopes in the Santa Catalina Mountains north of Tucson, Ariz., and a third telescope, in collaboration with the Australian National University, at Siding Spring, Australia. That makes CSS the only NEO survey that covers both the northern and southern hemispheres...
  
• 19 Jan 06 Nature: A late Miocene dust shower from the break-up of an asteroid in the main belt + Space.com: Asteroid Collision Fueled Ancient Dust Storm on Earth + Stardust Canister Opened: 'A Huge Success'.
  
• 6 Jan 06 Space.com: Reacting to Disaster.
  
• 30 Dec 05 EPSL: The 3.26-3.24 Ga Barberton asteroid impact cluster: Tests of tectonic and
  magmatic consequences, Pilbara Craton, Western Australia + Shock reequilibration of fluid inclusions in Coconino sandstone from Meteor Crater, Arizona
  
• 28 Dec 05 Space.com: Small Space Rock Spotted Hitting the Moon. Likely that a 120mm diameter meteoroid generated a bright flash and created a 3m diameter crater. See also this speculation about  spotting extra-solar impacts - involving similar technology and luck!
• 26 Dec 05 GCA: Petrology and geochemistry of LaPaz Icefield 02205: A new unique low-Ti mare-basalt meteorite.
  
• 22 Dec 05 Space.com: New Telescope to Revolutionize Asteroid Warning System + Crater Critters: Where Mars Microbes Might Lurk.
  
• 15 Dec 05 Space.com: Asteroid Probe Yields Insight For Planetary Defense.
  
• 14 Dec 05 PSS: Orbit of the Great Comet of 1854 (C/1854 F1) + A micro-Raman survey of 10 IDPs and 6 carbonaceous chondrites + Spectral characteristics and modeling of the trans-neptunian object (55565)
  2002 AW"1"9"7 and the Centaurs (55576) 2002 GB"1"0 and (83982) 2002 GO"9:
  ESO Large Program on TNOs and Centaurs.
  
• 9 Dec 05 Bondi shark scare over a docile "sun fish". This makes a good lesson about media accuracy (the tenuous link to Spaceguard). On Tuesday there was a shark alarm at Sydney's famous Bondi beach that made world headlines. That evening Ch7 TV news showed aerial pictures of the beast. Later in the bulletin the newsreader reported that it now appeared that the "shark" was a giant, docile sun fish - it seems that marine experts had seen the bulletin and called the station. That hasn't stopped the newspapers perpetuating the original inaccurate report.
  
• 8 Dec 05 SpaceDaily:  Japan Says Landmark Asteroid Probe Likely To Have Failed + NASA Prepares To Launch First Probe To The Kuiper Belt.
  
• 8 Dec 05 Nature (abs): Astrophysics: Is a doomsday catastrophe likely?
• 8 Dec 05 ABC: Police report 'dazzling' meteor There were reports of a big meteorite crossing south-western New South Wales and central Victoria overnight.
• 6 Dec 05 Steve Ward: New impact tsunami movies include blast-wave effects (~3Mb MOV): 10 km diameter Chicxulub + 1 km diameter off Southern California - impact tsunami news and links.
  
• 6 Dec 05 BBC: Poison [volcanic] gas 'caused' great [P/T] dying.
  
• 2 Dec 05 EPSL: The age of SNC meteorites and the antiquity of the Martian surface + Hydrothermal convection in carbonaceous chondrite parent bodies + Absence of extraterrestrial 3He in Permian–Triassic age sedimentary rocks
• 26 Nov 05 ABC: Japanese probe lands on asteroid, agency says - sampling successful? JAXA 22 Nov: Hayabusa Landed on and Took Off from Itokawa successfully -  it is the world-first departure from an celestial body except the moon.
  
• 26 Nov 05 Science: Hf-W Chronometry of Lunar Metals and the Age and Early Differentiation of the Moon
• 25 Nov 05 Guardian: Astronauts can jump - Asteroids, rather than the moon or Mars, should be the next target for manned space flight by Duncan Steel. See also 21 Aug 05 International Space Development Conference 05: Mars Indirect: Phobos as a Critical Step in Human Mars Exploration.
• 25 Nov 05 BBC: New attempt at asteroid landing
• 23 Nov 05 Update from 8 Nov: Meteorite magazine will continue to be published by a US group - details soon.
  
• 15 Nov 05 BBC: Link 'lost' with asteroid robot.
  
• 10 Nov 05 ABC Science: Asteroid Storm & Belt - In the Star Wars movie, The Empire Strikes Back, the good guys escape the baddies by steering their ship into an asteroid belt - where thousands of huge rocks crammed together make for some tricky manoeuvres. But in reality, it's nothing like that - an asteroid belt is practically all empty space.
  
• 10 Nov 05 BBC: Gravity tug to deflect asteroids + Nature: Gravity tractors beat bombs
• 8 Nov 05: I have just found out that Joel Schiff, the editor of Meteorite magazine, is seriously ill and is unable to continue producing the magazine. Joel has made a tremendous contribution to astronomy, particularly in the field of NEOs and meteorites. He encouraged me to research and write an article about the source of the Australasian Tektites. Best wishes to Joel and his family.
• 6 Nov 05 Space.com: NASA Dawn Asteroid Mission Told To 'Stand Down' + Japan's Hayabusa Asteroid Probe Hits Snag In Practice Landing Run
• 5 Nov 05 BBC: Asteroid encounter postponed - Hayabusa
• 4 Nov 05 Space.com: Asteroid Apophis: Dealing with Earth's Future Troublemaker (see also this 2000 article on "keyhole" orbits)
  
• 3 Nov 05: EARTH IN THE COSMIC SHOOTING GALLERY  By David Asher, Mark Bailey, Vacheslav Emel'yanenko and Bill Napier - The terrestrial impact rate appears to be substantially higher than current
  near-Earth object population models imply, consistent with a significant unseen cometary contribution to the terrestrial impact hazard. (CC)
  
• 2 Nov 05 Space.com:  Japanese Spacecraft Ready To Land on Asteroid Nov. 12 .
  
• 1 Nov 05 MSN Alan Boyle's Cosmic Log: NASA sets schedule for handling [Apophis] asteroid threat + B612 Foundation letter and the paper (CC)
  
• 29 Oct 05 EPSL (abs): Giant meteoroid impacts can cause volcanism.
  
• 24 Oct 05 Washington Post: Unearthing Clues to a Cataclysm - Buried Crater Near Norfolk Thought to Be Result of an Object Striking Earth (thanks Steve Ward)
  
• 18 Oct 05 SpaceDaily: NASA Prepares For Arrival Of Comet Samples To Houston + Evidence For More Dust Than Ice In Comets
  
• 18 Oct 05 NewSci (subs): Smash and grab raid on an asteroid - Hayabusa
  
• 11 Oct 05 American Scientist: BETTER COLLISION INSURANCE: ASTEROIDS SMALLER THAN THOSE NOW BEING ACTIVELY CATALOGUED CONSTITUTE A LARGELY NEGLECTED NATURAL HAZARD by Russell L. Schweickart and Clark R. Chapman "Although the frequency of asteroid impacts is very low compared with most other natural hazards, none has the same enormous potential for devastation. Conversely, a catastrophic collision with an asteroid, unlike any other major natural disaster, can be avoided entirely -- provided that we do our homework in time and with diligence." (thanks David Morrison)
  
• 7 Oct 05 BBC: [Japanese] Asteroid probe runs into trouble.
  
• 21 Sep 05 RAND: Astronomical Odds -  A Policy Framework for the Cosmic Impact Hazard by Geoffrey Sommer (thanks Duncan Steel)
  
• 21 Sep 05 NYT (regn): Fossils Offer Support for Meteor's [sic] Role in Dinosaur Extinction + Geology (abs): Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary deposits at Loma Capiro, central Cuba: Evidence for the Chicxulub impact (CC)
  
• 18 Sep 05 NewSci: Birthplace of famous Mars meteorite pinpointed
• 17 Sep 05 SpaceDaily: When Is A Space Rock More Than Just A Space Rock? + Asteroids Caused The Early Inner Solar System Cataclysm + Mauna Kea's Giant Eyes Reunite Comet Families + NASA Research Finds Green Sand Crystals Are In Comet Tempel 1.
  
• 16 Sep 05 Conference: NEAR EARTH OBJECTS: A NATURAL HAZARD OF GLOBAL PROPORTIONS -
  Wednesday 23rd November 2005, London
• 16 Sep 05 Space.com: Japanese Craft Takes Close-up Photos of Asteroid
• 15 Sep 05 BBC: [Hayabusa] Asteroid probe on close approach - JAXA website.
• 12 Sep 05 GCA (abs): New insight on aliphatic linkages in the macromolecular organic fraction of
  Orgueil and Murchison meteorites through ruthenium tetroxide oxidation [!]
  
• 9 Sep 05 Science (abs): Deep Impact: Excavating Comet Tempel 1.
  
• 8 Sep 05 ANU: Earth's surface transformed by massive asteroids + Comet collision 'Armageddon' unlikely
• 8 Sep 05 (Aust) ABC: Astronomers re-assess comet threat - The Australian National University (ANU) has discovered the chances of [any] comet hitting earth are lower than previously thought.
• 8 Sep 05 SpaceDaily: Hayabusa Successfully Captured Itokawa Shape For The First Time In Space + 'Snowy Dirtball' Mission Rewrites Our Knowledge Of Comets
  
• 8 Sep 05 Space.com: Largest Asteroid Might Contain More Fresh Water than Earth
• 8 Sep 05 BBC: Comet shakes conventional wisdom [Deep Impact results]
  
• 6 Sep 05 SpaceDaily: Risk From 2029 Asteroid Now More Remote + After Long Trek, Unsung Japanese Spacecraft Nears Asteroid Target - In June 2007, Hayabusa's precious payload, of just 100 milligrammes, should land in the Australian Outback.
  
• 2 Sep 05 EPSL: Geophysical evaluation of the enigmatic Bedout basement high, offshore northwestern Australia (CC)
  
• 28 Aug 05 SpaceDaily; Burning Asteroids May Play Critical Climate Role
• 28 Aug 05 UT: Earth's Climate During the Permian Extinction
• 22 Aug 05 TPS: Announcing the winners of  The Planetary Society's 2005 Gene Shoemaker NEO Grants! Also SpaceDaily.
  
• 19 Aug 05 NewSci (subs): Sample-return craft spots its asteroid target
• 18 Aug 05 Nature: Young chondrules in CB chondrites from a giant impact in the early Solar System.
  
• 17 Aug 05 SpaceDaily: Asteroid's Near-Miss May Be Home Run For Scientists
• 13 Aug 05 GPC: Improving the methodology for assessing natural hazard impacts [discussing climate, but relevant to microplanets].
  
• 12 Aug 05 Science (subs): Dealing with disasters.
• 12 Aug 05  Science and Global Security, Volume 13, Number 1-2 / January-August 2005 (subs): Defending the Earth Against Asteroids: The Case for a Global Response +A Scientific Impact Response Team for the Aftermath of Small Asteroid and Comet Impacts
• 11 Aug 05 TPS: The July/August 05 issue of Planetary Report has an excellent article about asteroid 2004 MN4 by Rusty Schweickart. This is only available in the printed publication for members of the Planetary Society.
  
• 10 Aug 05 SpaceDaily: India's Smoking Gun: Dino-Killing Eruptions
• 9 Aug 05: Duncan Steel' s web page at Macquarie Uni
  
• 6 Aug 05 UT: Massive Asteroids Transformed the Earth's Surface - ANU News Release . Also at PhysOrg.com.
  
• 6 Aug 05 Planetary and Space Science: Volume 53, Issue 11, Pages 1097-1202 (September 2005) has several items about microplanets.
  
• 3 Aug 05 UT: Bright Splat on Rhea
• 1 Aug 05 University of Arizona: PDF "Earth Impact Effects Program: A Web-based Computer Program for Calculating the Regional Environmental Consequences of a Meteoroid Impact on Earth" describes the Earth Impact Effects Calculator  (see also Environmental effects of impacts)
  
• 30 Jul 05 NewSci: New solar system world has a moon. Mike Brown's web page.
• 30 Jul 05 BBC: Distant object found orbiting Sun - a new microplanet or planet?
  
• 27 Jul 05 NASA; Schweickart Proposes Study of Impact Risk from Apophis (MN4) - Rusty Schweickart and the B612 Foundation have asked NASA to further study the possibility that this asteroid might return to hit the Earth after its close approach in 2029
• 27 Jul 05 GCA (abs): New pyrolytic and spectroscopic data on Orgueil and Murchison [meteorite] insoluble
  organic matter: A different origin than soluble? - some of the amino acids might not be cow dung!
  
• 25 Jul 05 NewSci (subs): Mass extinction theory on the rocks + Meteoroid impacts give facelifts to asteroids
• 24 Jul 05 B612 Foundation to NASA Administrator Michael Griffin: "we propose...the launch and subsequent docking of a scientific mission, including a standard radio transponder, with 2004MN4...". Copy of NEO news item.
• 11 Jul 05 Asteroid/Comet Connection: Several important NEO follow-up observations from Australia reported in recent NEO news,
  
• 11 Jul 05 NASA: NASA's Deep Impact Tells a Tale of the Comet.
  
• 8 Jul 05 Apple: Asteroids Widget - classic arcade game now available as a "widget" for Apple OS X.
  
• 8 Jul 05 BBC: Comet's huge plume hides crater - The Deep Impact spacecraft may have missed its chance to see the crater made in Comet Tempel 1 because of the large plume of material kicked out.
  
• 5 Jul 05 TPS report on Deep Impact mission.
  
• 5 Jul 05 UT: Hubble's View of Deep Impact + Deep Impact Smashes Into Tempel 1
• 27 Jun 05 Weekend Australian:  Betting on a big bang (Deep Impact)
  
• 24 Jun 05 NewSci (subs): Killer asteroid: Too close for comfort
  
• 24 Jun 05 Nature: Timescales of shock processes in chondritic and martian meteorites - martian meteorites with similar, recent ejection ages may have originated from the same few square kilometres on Mars.
  
• 22 Jun 05 UT: First View of Tempel 1's Nucleus
• 22 Jun 05 SciAm: Magma Oceans Covered Early Asteroids + Desert Island How climate can promote speciation (how about climate disruption from microplanet impacts?)
  
• 20 Jun 05 EPSL: The Late Devonian Frasnian-Famennian (F/F) biotic crisis - volcanic disturbance?
  
• 19 Jun 05 PSS: Final results from the space dust (SPADUS) instrument flown aboard the earth-orbiting ARGOS spacecraft - flux and velocity of dust particle impacts.
  
• 16 Jun 05 SciAm: What is the chance of an asteroid hitting Earth and how do astronomers calculate it?
• 16 Jun 05 UT: Earth Formed from Melted Asteroids
• 15 Jun 05 Space.com: Congress Calls for Asteroid Action Plan.
  
• 10 Jun 05 Science (abs): Rapid Acidification of the Ocean During the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum. A puzzle how so much CO2 got into the atmosphere.
  
• 8 Jun 05 Space.com: Deep Impact Poised to Crack Comet Mysteries.
  
• 8 Jun 05 UT: Homing Beacon for an Asteroid + Observatories Are Calibrating For Deep Impact
• 5 Jun 05 GCA abstracts: Microscale carbon isotope variability in ALH84001 carbonates and a
  discussion of possible formation environments + Formation processes of compound chondrules in CV3 carbonaceous chondrites: Constraints from oxygen isotope ratios and major element concentrations + Iminodicarboxylic acids in the Murchison meteorite: Evidence of Strecker reactions + Extracts of impact breccia samples from Sudbury, Gardnos, and Ries impact craters and the effects of aggregation on C₆₀ detection (Fullerenes) + An ordinary chondrite impactor for the Popigai crater, Siberia.
  
• 4 Jun 05 MSSS: Young crater on Mars - fresh geology!
  
• 3 Jun 05 Scott Manley: Asteroid density plots - a dynamic work of art (thanks Duncan Steel)
  
• 2 Jun 05 Space Review: Sounding an alarm, cautiously (2004 MN4)
  
• 2 Jun 05 PSRD: Making Sense of Droplets Inside Droplets - The vexing presence of chondrules inside supposedly older calcium-aluminum-rich inclusions
  
• 2 Jun 05 Wired: Congressman [Rohrabacher] Backs Asteroid Agency (CC)
  
• 2 Jun 05 NewSci: Comet put on list of potential Earth impactors - 1km (max)  comet with a possible (but extremely unlikely) impact in 2085. JPL information. There are currently three objects with a non-zero Torino rating, comet Catalina is not amongst them. Update 9 Jun 05: Comet Catalina removed from list (thanks CCNet)
  
• 27 May 05 Nature (abs): Origin of the orbital architecture of the giant planets of the Solar System + Chaotic capture of Jupiter's Trojan asteroids in the early Solar System + Origin of the cataclysmic Late Heavy Bombardment period of the terrestrial planets.
  
• 26 May 05 GCA: High-resolution geochemical record of Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary sections in Mexico: New constraints on the K/T and Chicxulub events.
  
• 26 May 05 JPL: Odd Spot on Titan Baffles Scientists - possible recent impact crater
  
• 26 May 05 ABC: 'Planetary billards' created Man in the Moon -  Astrophysicists believe that a jarring game of planetary billiards in the early years of the Solar System created the Man in the Moon.
• 25 May 05 SpaceRef.com: A Call to (Considered) Action - address to Congress by Russell L. Schweickart (thanks Steve Ward). See also Asteroid deflection (keyholes and transponders)
  
• 21 May 05 US House Committee on Science: NOAA, NASA BILLS SAIL THROUGH COMMITTEE - introduced by Rep. Rohrabacher, [the Bill] would establish a program within NASA to detect, track, catalogue, and characterize the physical properties of near-Earth asteroids and comets equal to or greater than 100 meters in diameter in order to assess the threat of Earth being struck by such near-Earth objects.  The bill would authorize appropriations for the program of $20 million for each of fiscal years 2006 through 2007.
  
• 20 May 05 Space.com: Astronaut Calls on Congress to Investigate Threatening Asteroid. See also Asteroid deflection
• 15 May 05 EPSL (abs): Basaltic volcanism and mass extinction at the Permo-Triassic boundary: Environmental impact and modeling of the global carbon cycle.
  
• 13 May 05 Science@NASA: Friday the 13th, 2029 - asteroid "skims" past the Earth.
  
• 11 May 05 Skeptical Enquirer: Hyperbole in Media Reports on Asteroids and Impacts by David Morrison (CC)
  
• 11 May 05 Space.com: Mars Flooding Tied to Meteoritic Impacts.
• 7 May 05 ABC: Astrologer to sue NASA over comet plans
• 6 May 05 ABC: Corporate Psychopaths - Is your boss manipulative? Intimidating? Totally lacking in remorse? Yet superficially charming? Then you could be working with a workplace psychopath. The latest figures suggest one in ten managers are psychopaths...
  
• 6 May 05 Nature: Pheobe taken captive
• 6 May 05 NewSci: Lost asteroid clue to Pioneer puzzle
• 29 Apr 05 SpaceDaily: NASA's Deep Impact Spacecraft Spots Its Quarry, Stalking Begins.
  
• 26 Apr 05 LiveScience: Gasping for Air: Lack of Oxygen Worsened the 'Great Dying'
• 24 Apr 05 (back from vacation) Chillicothe Gazette: Rare metal found in samples at Serpent Mound (around the time of P/T impact?) (thanks William Blair)
  
• 24 Apr 05 S&T: AN EXO-ASTEROID BELT.
  
• 8 Apr 05 UT: Gamma Ray Bursts Could Have Led to Extinctions (see comment on 6 Mar speculation - ozone depletion seems unlikely as a mass extinction cause - a relatively small asteroid impact would have a similar effect)
  
• 6 Apr 05 Times: Asteroid threat From Miss Julia Bird (Year 6) (CC)
  
• 2 Apr 05 BBC: Great [PT] extinction came in phases
  
• 1 Apr 05 SMH: Sleeping giants present the biggest threat of all (super volcanoes)
  
• 30 Mar 05 BBC: Comet mission's images are blurry - Deep Impact - the mission to crash a projectile into a comet - has a blurry camera.
  
• 25 Mar 05 S&T: HALE-BOPP: THE COMET THAT DOESN'T QUIT - still has a tail 21AU from the Sun!
  
• 25 Mar 05 UT: Asteroid Created a Rain of Rock
• 24 Mar 05 NewSci: Crater count led Mars historians astray.
  
• 24 Mar 05 Nature: Two episodes of microbial change coupled with Permo/Triassic faunal mass extinction.
  
• 22 Mar 05 Space.com: Congress Moves on Amateur Asteroid-Watching Bill.
  
• 21 Mar 05 Royal Astronomical Society of Canada Dec98: Impact cratering through geologic time by Gene Shoemaker (3Mb PDF) - a landmark paper.
  
• 21 Mar 05 Cheshire Online: Pupils keep an eye on the sky (CC)
  
• 11 Mar 05 NASA NEO: Report on International Workshop on Impacts & Society (Nov/DEC 204) +
  
• 10 Mar 05 Nature (subs): A smashing pair (of microplanets) + Meteor Crater formed by low-velocity impact -
  The paucity of melted rock in this crater may be due to the striking projectile's speed.
  
• 10 Mar 05 BBC: Experts weigh super-volcano risks + Live Science: Super Volcano Will Challenge Civilization, Geologists Warn. See also Nature: Super-eruptions might not be as environmentally devastating as we thought. (CC)
  
• 6 Mar 05 Space.com: Huge Space Clouds May Have Caused Mass Extinctions + UT: Did Clouds in Space Cause Snowball Earth? - plausible idea but microplanet impacts and super-volcanoes seem a more likely cause.
  
• 4 Mar 05 BBC: Comet spacecraft [Rossetta] makes Earth pass.
• 4 Mar 05 UT: Giant Planets Created Primitive Meteorites
• 2 Mar 05 NEO conferences in Russia (3-5 Oct 2005) and Brazil (7-12 Aug 2005) - thanks Andy Smith (CC)
• 26 Feb 05 Space.com: ESA Calls on Skywatchers to Track Rosetta Probe's Earth Flyby.
• 25 Feb 05 SciAm; Meteorwrongs - interview (sort of) with Rick Binzel.
• 25 Feb 05 Science: Courting Disaster - A review of Catastrophe Risk and Response by Richard A. Posner
  
• 25 Feb 05 UT: DR. DAVID J. THOLEN ANSWERS YOUR ASTEROID QUESTIONS.
  
• 12 Feb 05 Astronomy:  Will Earth break up 2004 MN4? - An asteroid buzzing past Earth in 2029 will come closer than expected — and may not survive intact (CC)
  
• 11 Feb 05 LPSC05 : The Cosmic Clock, The Cycle of Terrestrial Mass Extinctions (PDF) . See also The Great Permian Extinction Debate (CC - thanks James A. Marusek)
• 11 Feb 05 UT: Death Star Mimas' Herschel Crater - the impact that almost destroyed a moon looks like a scene out of Star Wars.
  
• 8 Feb 05 Science (regn): The Sky is Falling! (2029 near miss)
  
• 7 Feb 05 India Daily: Computer model predicts 150 sq. mile [sic] asteroid to hit earth in 65 years – wipe out human civilization like that of Dinosaurs - BUT "The data received is vague and is yet to be confirmed..". I have never heard of a flat (150 sq mile) asteroid or of a Dinosaur civilisation, but there you go!
  
• 6 Feb 05 Space.com: Closest Flyby of Large Asteroid to be Naked-Eye Visible MSNBC: Watch an asteroid whiz by in 2029, Herald Sun (Melb): Space rock visible to eye
• 5 Feb 05 S&T: ASTEROID 2004 MN4: A REALLY NEAR MISS - 320m diameter rock will pass within 30,000km of the Earth on 13 April 2029.
  
• 4 Feb 05 SpaceDaily: Welcome To Rhea: Impact Central
• 3 Feb 05 Space.com: Orbital Overload: Space Debris Crowds the Not-So-Friendly Skies.
  
• 29 Jan 05 Space.com: Massive Planetoids From Beyond the Solar System + Pluto Hit By Twin to Create Moon, Study Suggests
• 29 Jan 05 UT: Pluto and Charon Could Have Formed Together
• 26 Jan 05 BNSC: Government [disappointing] Response to the NEO Task Force Recommendations - Update January 2005. (CC)
  
• 26 Jan 05 Space.com: Contest to Pick Timing of SOHO's 1,000th Comet.
  
• 21 Jan 05 Science: Abrupt and Gradual Extinction Among Late Permian Land Vertebrates in the Karoo Basin, South Africa - According to the latest fossil evidence  the Permian-Triassic extinction resulted from a protracted crisis rather than an impact.
• 20 Jan 05 JPL: Opportunity Rover Finds an Iron Meteorite on Mars
• 15 Jan 05 Guardian: A kick in the cosmos - Deep Impact mission - Duncan Steel (CC)
  
• 15 Jan 05 SMH: Nature bigger threat than terrorism: UN chief + Scientists may have got it wrong about dinosaurs
  
• 8 Jan 05 Space.com: The Odds of Dying.
  
• 7 Jan 05 Our Tsunami from Comet/Asteroid Impact webpage earns Griffith Observatory Star Awards
• 31 Dec 04 SciAm: How much did hurricanes and other natural disasters cost the insurance industry in the first 10 months of 2004?
• 31 Dec 04 Public Statement by the IAU and its Working Group on Near-Earth Objects on NEO 2004MN4
• 31 Dec 04 S&T: Earth Safe from Asteroid 2004 MN4.
  
• 29 Dec 04 Copy of "The Great Earthquake and Tsunami of 26 December 2004 in Southeast Asia"
  by Dr. George Pararas-Carayannis temporarily added due to his website being overloaded. More on this disaster.
  
• 29 Dec 04 NASA: Possibility of an Earth Impact in 2029 Ruled Out for Asteroid 2004 MN4 (CC - "once again old observations provided the data necessary to rule out an impact")
• 29 Dec 04 Space.com: Whew! Asteroid Won't Hit Earth in 2029, Scientists Now Say + Worrisome Asteroid Underscores Planetary Defense Mission + Asteroid With Chance of Hitting Earth in 2029 Now Being Watched 'Very Carefully' (CC)
  
• 24 Dec 04 UT: Asteroid 2004 MN4 Gets the Highest Score on the Torino Scale (400m in diameter, 1 in 300 chance of impact in  2029 - further observations will likely eliminate the risk) + Jovian Moon Was Probably Captured
• 24 Dec 04 S&T: COMET MACHHOLZ SHINES!
  
• 23 Dec 04 Space.com: Small Asteroid Passes Between Satellites and Earth .
  
• 23 Dec 04 Nature: Meteoric smoke fallout over the Holocene epoch revealed by iridium and platinum in Greenland ice + The impact of humidity above stratiform clouds on indirect aerosol climate forcing  (ocean impacts?)
  
• 22 Dec 04 ABC Radio Science Show: Deep Impact - interview with Duncan Steel (no "e"!)
• 22 Dec 04 SciAm: How do volcanoes affect world climate?
• 16 Dec 04 China Daily: Mass UFO spotted in Gansu Province (Meteorite fall) (CC)
  
• 16 Dec 04 Acta Astronautica: Charting response options for threatening near-Earth objects (CC)
  
• 16 Dec 04 ABC Science: The Search for Planets - southernmost professional observatory (apart from South Pole?)
  
• 16 Dec 04 Stanford Uni: Geophysicists debate the cause of hotspots (CC)
  
• 15 Dec 04 Comptes Rendus Geosciences: Discovery of the largest impact crater field on Earth in the Gilf Kebir region, Egypt. (CC)
  
• 15 Dec 04 SFC: Scientists clash over origin of 'the Great Dying' - Volcanic, celestial theories on extinction 250 million years ago take stage in S.F. (CC)
  
• 15 Dec 04  Acta Astronautica: Planetary Defense From Space: Part 1-Keplerian Theory (CC)
  
• 15 Dec 04 SMH: Comet mission fires up for deep impact
• 13 Dec 04 SMH: Cosmic fireworks show - If the weather behaves, Sydney may be treated to a meteor shower tonight and early tomorrow.
• 9 Dec 04 Nature: Crystalline water ice on the Kuiper belt object (50000) Quaoar + Chilly Quaoar had a warmer past
• 9 Dec 04 Kansas City Star: Debate still rages on demise of dinosaurs (CC)
  
• 8 Dec 04 Space.com: New Comet Now Visible to Naked Eye
• 8 Dec 04 UT: Geminids Peak on December 13th - NASA Science Article
• 4 Dec 04 Starlore: CLIMATE, COMETS AND HUMAN HISTORY - Dr Vic Gostin.
  
• 4 Dec 04 GCA: The carbon isotopic distribution of Murchison amino acids.
  
• 3 Dec 04 Science: Did Jupiter and Saturn Team Up to Pummel the Inner Solar System?
  
• 3 Dec 04 Geology (abstracts): Geochemistry of the end-Permian extinction event in Austria and Italy: No evidence for an extraterrestrial component + Iridium anomalies and shocked quartz in a Late Archean spherule layer from the Pilbara craton: New evidence for a major asteroid impact at 2.63 Ga.
  
• 3 Dec 04 ABC: ANCIENT METEORITE LEAVES TELLTALE TRACES - The first convincing evidence of a massive meteorite impact that occurred 2.63 billion years ago has been found in northwestern Australia's Pilbara region.
• 3 Dec 04 NewSci: Major satellite in mystery shutdown [maybe space debris or meteoroids].
  
• 2 Dec 04 Nature (abstract): Stellar encounters as the origin of distant Solar System objects in highly eccentric orbits - see also Transpermia paper
  
• 1 Dec 04 SpaceDaily: New Evidence Supports Terrestrial Cause Of End-Permian Mass Extinction - "Our geochemical analyses of these two famous end-Permian sections in Austria and Italy reveal no tangible evidence of extraterrestrial impact," said Koeberl.
  
• 30 Nov 04 The Daily Inter Lake: Researchers propose extraterrestrial [KT] connection for Montana coal fields (CC)
  
• 30 Nov 04 Space.com: How Collisions Shaped an Asteroid.
  
• 26 Nov 04 Science (abstracts):  Impact-Induced Seismic Activity on Asteroid 433 Eros: A Surface Modification Process + Nothing Simple About Asteroids.
  
• 25 Nov 04 Icarus (abstract): Bias-corrected population, size distribution, and impact hazard for the near-Earth objects - Globally destructive collisions (~1021 J) of asteroids 1 km or larger strike the Earth once every 0.60±0.1 Myr on average. Regionally destructive collisions with impact energy greater than 4×1018 J (~200 m diameter) strike the Earth every 56,000±6000 yr. Collisions in the range of the Tunguska event (4-8×1016 J) occur every 2000-3000 yr. (CC)
  
• 23 Nov 04 BBC: Bees survived dino extinction - GSA release.
• 23 Nov 04 GSA: Did Dinosaurs Die at Hands of Meteorite Fall or Volcanic Eruption? (a 10km "meteorite"!)
  
• 20 Nov 04 ABC: The asteroid was innocent, says dino study - many researchers are skeptical about Dr Keller's latest claims. See Impacts and Extinctions.
  
• 19 Nov 04 Science: How Neptune Pushed the Boundaries of Our Solar System.
• 19 Nov 04 Space.com: The Terminator Tether Aims to Clean Up Low Earth Orbit.
  
• 15 Nov 04 Space.com: The Leonid Meteor Shower 2004: Modest Peak Expected Nov. 16-19. Leonids links page. NASA predictions for 2004.
  
• 13 Nov 04 UT: Hubble's Accidental [main belt] Asteroid Discovery
• 12 Nov 04 SpaceDaily: Deep Impact Undergoing Final Preparations For Dec 30 Launch
• 11 Nov 04 UT: Icy Objects Could Be Smaller Than Previously Thought - KBO's are probably brighter than previously thought and therefore much smaller than estimated.
  
• 10 Nov 04 NAI:   Tugboat as Lifeboat? (NEO deflection by B612 Foundation)
  
• 10 Nov 04 Space Review: SAGAN'S RATIONALE FOR HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT (CC)
• 9 Nov 04 Xinhuanet : CHINA JOINS SPACEGUARD EFFORTS - Largest near-earth objects telescope [in China] installed
  
• 5 Nov 04 2nd International Workshop on WATER DYNAMICS: Program 
• J. L Kirschvink "BORON, RIBOSE, AND A MARTIAN ORIGIN FOR TERRESTRIAL LIFE"
• M. T. Rosing "THE EARLIST TRACES OF LIFE ON EARTH FROM ISUA, WEST GREENLAND - MORE THAN 3700 MILLION YEARS OF INTERACTION BETWEEN EARTH AND ITS LIFE"
• M. R. Rampino "MAJOR PERTURBATION OF OCEAN CHEMISTRY AFTER THE END-PERMIAN MASS EXTINCTION"
• L. Becker "GLOBAL EVIDENCE FOR A PERMIAN-TRIASSIC IMPACT EVENT"
• E. Pierazzo "OCEANIC IMPACTS AND THE ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS OF ATMOSPHEREIC WATER INJECTION"
• 5 Nov 04 NewSci: Largest ever field of impact craters uncovered - other researchers are skeptical about the claims.
  
• 4 Nov 04 NASA NEO News: PROTECTING EARTH FROM ASTEROIDS AND COMETS - (PDF) An AIAA Position Paper (2004). Recommendations:
  

• Create an organization within the U.S. government responsible for planetary defense. 

• Extend the Spaceguard Survey, currently focused on finding and cataloging 1-km-class objects and larger, to include finding and cataloging 100-m-class NEOs and larger. 
  

• Develop and fund ground-based techniques as well as missions to several asteroids to gather information that contributes to designing deflection missions.
    
• Conduct mission design studies to characterize requirements for short-, medium-, and long-term missions.
  
  
• Conduct flight tests to demonstrate our ability to change a NEO's orbit.
  
  
• Sponsor research to assess the political, social, legal, and disaster relief
  consequences of a serious NEO threat, mitigation effort, or possible impact.

• 4 Nov 04 Nature: Supernova debris found on Earth - Ancient explosion may have affected climate and, possibly, human evolution.
  
• 3 Nov 04 NAI: Shiva: Another K-T impact?
• 3 Nov 04 AGU Annual Meeting sessions: Evaluating the Role of Impact in the End Permian and End Traissic Mass Extinctions: How Do These Compare With Other Impact or Extinction Events? I + II + Antipodal Hotspots and Bipolar Catastrophes: Were Oceanic Large-Body Impacts to Blame? + Ices, Icy Satellites, Comets, and Other Small Bodies + Correlations Between Magnetic Anomalies and Surface Geology Antipodal to Lunar Impact Basins + Characterizing Starting Conditions for Hydrothermal Systems Underneath Martian Craters + Craters in the Seabed of the Gulf of California Caused by Volcanic Explosion? Volcanic Subsidence? Meteoroid Impact? Hydrocarbon Venting? or Dissolution? + Radiating fissure swarms in Beta Regio, Venus: Evidence of formation from impact craters
• 2 Nov 04 SpaceDaily: Cambridge Astronomers Take Hubble-Quality Images from the Ground (not for Spaceguard - but the technology looks promising)
  
• 2 Nov 04 ABC: Oz desert best to photograph fireballs (Thanks Spaceguard UK)
  
• 2 Nov 04 NASA: Hyperbole in Reports on NEOs and Impacts
• 2 Nov 04 PSRD: New Lunar Meteorite Provides its Lunar Address and Some Clues about Early Bombardment of the Moon.
  
• 30 Oct 04 GSA Annual meeting: Discussion Forum: Impacts & Evolution +
  
• THE INSCRUTABLE EJECTA FROM OCEANIC IMPACTS
• LATE PALEOPROTEROZOIC METEORITE IMPACT? INSIGHTS FROM THE CHAIBASA SHALE, EASTERN INDIA
• CONTINENTAL VS OCEANIC ASTEROID IMPACTS
• MICROBIALLY MEDIATED PRECIPITATION OF CARBONATES AND EXCEPTIONAL PRESERVATION OF FOSSILS IN THE KIRKPATRICK BASALT (JURASSIC) OF ANTARCTICA
• ANOTHER LOOK AT IMPACT, METHANE OUTBURSTS AND EXTINCTION MECHANISMS AT THE PERMIAN-TRIASSIC BOUNDARY
• ANTIPODAL HOTSPOTS, LARGE IGNEOUS PROVINCES, AND SEA-LEVEL CHANGES: VESTIGES OF OCEANIC LARGE-BODY IMPACTS?
• Impact Geology I  + Impact Geology II + 
• More search results for 'Crater' (>90)
  
• 30 Oct 04 BBC: Tidal wave threat 'over-hyped'
• 28 Oct 04 Nature: New species of man discovered - Dwarf hominid lived in Indonesia just 18,000 years ago.
• 25 Oct 04 NAI: Countdown to Deep Impact
  
• 25 Oct 04 ACC: Tiny (8 metre) Earth-Moon system intruder 2004 UH1 - MPEC 2004-U29 today announces the discovery of tiny 2004 UH1, which is flying through the Earth-Moon system and, according to JPL, will come to 0.7 to 0.8 lunar distances from Earth around 1740 UT (1:40pm EDT) tomorrow (24Oct). From its brightness, its diameter is estimated at 8 meters...
• 22 Oct 04 Science (subs): Comment on "Bedout: A Possible End-Permian Impact Crater Offshore of Northwestern Australia"
      Andrew Glikson + Response to Comment on "Bedout: A Possible End-Permian Impact Crater Offshore of Northwestern Australia"
      L. Becker, R. J. Poreda, A. R. Basu, K. O. Pope, T. M. Harrison, C. Nicholson, and R. Iasky
  
• 22 Oct 04 Space.com: Experts Calculate Risk of Uncontrolled Hubble Re-entry - NASA: ORSAT software & Safety Standard 1740
• 21 Oct 04 PSS: Catastrophic Disruption of Small Solar System Bodies (contents of Journal)
  
• 21 Oct 04 UT: Orionid Meteor Shower, October 21
• 21 Oct 04 NAI: Multiple Impacts? - More KT speculation. Note that a 'meteorite' is a small lump of rock that reaches earth from space. The Chicxulub crater was formed by an asteroid or comet at least 10km in diameter (I prefer the term microplanet to describe these objects). While there may have been speculative near-simultaneous impacts and other factors that led to the demise of the dinosaurs the environmental effects of Chicxulub were easily sufficient to account for the observed extinctions.
  
• 19 Oct 04 American Scientist:   It Came from Outer Space? A recently discovered impact crater in Italy could be just an old watering hole
• 19 Oct 04 SciAm: What is the chance of an asteroid hitting Earth and how do astronomers calculate it? (CC) (see also Risk and Consequences)
• 19 Oct 04 MNRAS: Extreme albedo comets and the impact hazard (very dark comets might be buzzing us undetected - but, as Benny Peiser points out on CCNet, the known large NEO population is in pretty good agreement with the cratering rates on terrestrial plaanets) (CC)
• 19 Oct 04 The Scotsman: Roman Comet 5,000 Times More Powerful Than A-Bomb.(speculative - CC)
• 19 Oct 04 Spitzer Space telescope/NASA: Astronomers Discover Planet Building is Big Mess.
• 18 Oct 04 BBC: Satellite smashes Chinese house
• 16 Oct 04 Australian Risk Engineering Conference - Melbourne 8-9 Nov 04 - RISK 2004.Keynote Speaker - Duncan Steel
• 16 Oct 04 Space.com: In Extinction Debate, Dinosaurs and Science Writers are the Losers. (see also Did Asteroid-Induced Firestorm Destroy the Dinosaurs?)
  
• 16 Oct 04 NewSci: DINOSAURS WERE STRUCK DOWN IN THEIR PRIME (CC)
• 16 Oct 04 The Daily Californian: Researchers Put New Date on Extinction - Scientists Use Improved Techniques to Revise Date of [PT] Mass Extinction (CC)
  
• 15 Oct 04 Financial Times (subs reqd): Shock Waves - Fears that a volcanic eruption in the Canary Islands could send a 25-metre-high tsunami crashing into the US coast have been gaining momentum. But rival scientists dismiss the prediction as a hugely unlikely worst-case scenario. Who do we believe? ... And even if the La Palma tsunami were not to be quite so immense, it would still be classified as a flood, explains Bob Hartwig, chief economist of the Insurance Information Institute in New York. And floods are, generally, not covered under most property insurance. As far as catastrophic events go, insurance companies are more worried by what lurks in the heavens. "Meteors," says Hartwig, "they're covered by insurance, but not factored into premiums. If a meteor similar to the one that hit Siberia in 1908 were to hit western Europe or the north-east United States, we could go bankrupt."
• 14 Oct 04 NASA: Debating the Dinosaur Extinction + Great Impact Debates.
  
• 13 Oct 04 ABC: Asteroid did not end dinosaurs: NZ scientists +  Trends in Ecology & Evolution: The rise of birds and mammals: are microevolutionary processes sufficient for macroevolution?
• 13 Oct 04 BBC: Drilling for Africa's climate history (impact crater formed a lake in Ghana 1million years ago). "Deep Impact - Ghana" will be broadcast on the BBC World Service's Discovery Programme on Wednesday 13 October at 0905GMT
• 12 Oct 04 Space.com: Comet Crashing Mission Prepped For Launch
• 10 Oct 04 EPSL: Impact melt rocks from the Ries structure, Germany: an origin as impact melt flows? Abstract + Erratum to “Yarrabubba—a large, deeply eroded impact structure in the Yilgarn Craton, Western Australia” [Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 213 (2003) 235–247] Abstract
• 7 Oct 04 Ball Aerospace: Deep Impact Spacecraft and Impactor Complete Environmental Testing.(CC)
• 7 Oct 04 The Guardian: Space Evaders (lack of action in UK. Note that the image seems to be an asteroid entering the Earth's atmosphere  - not "passing the earth"). (CC)
  
• 7 Oct 04 Yahoo (Germany): Größtes Meteoritenfeld der Welt in Südägypten entdeckt (a team of French-Egyptian researchers has discovered the largest meteorite field of the world in the south of Egypt). (CC)
  
• 6 Oct 04 UT: Centre of the Milky Way Sterilized by Blasts
• 4 Oct 04 SpaceDaily: ESO Views Of Earth-Approaching Asteroid Toutatis
• 3 Oct 04 GCA (abstract): Beryllium-10 in Australasian tektites: Constraints on the location of the source crater
• 3 Oct 04 S&T: TOUTATIS ENCOUNTERS EARTH -- AND MISSES (THIS TIME)
• 3 Oct 04 Space.com: See Video of Huge Asteroid Flying Past Earth Today (29 Sep!)
  
• 28 Sep 04 UT: Toutatis Sneaks Past the Earth on Wednesday + NAI: Toutatis: Almost Too Close for Comfort
  
• 21 Sep 04 Space.com: Newfound Comet Set for Winter Display
• 21 Sep 04 Discovery News: Massive [PT] Die-Off Date Pinpointed.(CC)
  
• 18 Sep 04 SMH: The Great Dying The greatest mass extinction in Earth's history was triggered by huge volcanic eruptions, Australian research shows.
• 16 Sep 04 NAI: The Other Mars Meteorite - from a saltwater lake?
  
• 11 Sep 04 The Scotsman: ASTEROID AND COMET IMPACTS MAY HAVE BROUGHT LIFE TO EARTH (CC) - see also Asteroids: now for the good news - a talk given at Macquarie Uni one year ago.
  
• 8 Sep 04 BBC: Noah's Ark plan from top Moon man - there should be a Noah's Ark on the Moon, in case the Earth is destroyed by an asteroid or nuclear holocaust. [the money would be better spent on avoiding the calamity!]
  
• 1 Sep 04 BBC: Comet pioneer Fred Whipple dies - He was the first scientist to describe comets as "dirty snowballs".
  
• 31 Aug 04 UT: What Impact Would Set the World on Fire? SWRI News Release
• 30 Aug 04 PSRD: Meteorite Shower in Park Forest, Illinois.
  
• 30 Aug 04 SpaceDaily: Small asteroid gives Earth its closest shave.
  
• 21 Aug 04 NewSci: Doomsday wreck in Thames could blow A cargo of bombs that sank in the Thames during World War II could cause one of the biggest non-nuclear explosions ever (apart from Krakatoa, Tunguska... maybe they mean non-nuclear, non-natural).
• 21 Aug 04 SpaceDaily: Cooking On A Comet..? Rosetta mission instruments.
  
• 20 Aug 04 BBC: Antarctic craters reveal strike - the report is rather fuzzy about the size and distribution of craters and should be treated with skepticism. If it is 780,000 years old then it co-incides with the Australasian Tektite event (but is in the "wrong" location). The 30th Congress of the International Geographical Union. + The Guardian.
  
• 19 Aug 04 ABC: Boffins examine 'meteorite' that hit woman
• 17 Aug 04 George Mason Uni: Run To The Hills! La Palma "mega-tsunami" + Dr. George Pararas-Carayannis: EVALUATION OF THE THREAT OF MEGA TSUNAMI GENERATION FROM POSTULATED MASSIVE SLOPE FAILURES OF ISLAND STRATOVOLCANOES ON LA PALMA, CANARY ISLANDS, AND ON THE ISLAND OF HAWAII
• 17 Aug 04 EPSL: Basaltic explosive volcanism, but no comet impact, at the Paleocene-Eocene boundary: high-resolution chemical and isotopic records from Egypt, Spain and Denmark + Flood deposits penecontemporaneous with ~0.8 Ma tektite fall in NE Thailand: impact-induced environmental effects? (see also Environmental effects of impacts)
  
• 13 Aug 04 Science: Probing the Accumulation History of the Voluminous Toba [super-volcano] Magma.
  
• 13 Aug 04 Space.com: Russian Alien Spaceship Claims Raise Eyebrows, Skepticism. Comment: airbursts, with little evidence reaching the ground, are the most common type of cosmic impact likely to result in fatalities.
  
• 12 Aug 04 EPSL Abstracts: Isotopic evidence bearing on Late Triassic extinction events, Queen Charlotte Islands, British Columbia, and implications for the duration and cause of the Triassic/Jurassic mass extinction "While there is no definitive evidence as to cause, the isotopic record does not appear similar to that of the impact-caused Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary extinction" + Nanosized carbon-rich grains in carbonaceous chondrite meteorites.
  
• 10 Aug 04 Spacedaily: Perseids To Storm August 11?
• 10 Aug 04 BBC: Nature 'mankind's gravest threat'  + ABC: Scientist warns of tsunami in the making ... On a brighter note, scientist Benny Peiser of John Moores University in Liverpool told the same news conference that the threat of a cataclysmic strike on the earth by a large asteroid was fading rapidly as money was pumped (?) into finding them. He says that within 10 to 30 years, all the near-earth asteroids will have been charted and scientists believe they can find a way to steer an asteroid out of the way of the earth, as long as they have enough warning it is coming. BUT see also Tsunami Society 2003: MEGA TSUNAMI HAZARDS  - We would like to halt the scaremongering from these unfounded reports [that collapse of volcano flanks might cause ocean-wide "mega-tsunami"] . Regarding Dr Peiser's comments, there are still plenty of gaps in our defences and no sign of serious support from governments outside the USA and Japan. With sufficient resources there is the potential, within a decade or so, to eliminate the threat of global catastrophe from short period asteroids. The threat of local catastrophe from a Tunguska-like airburst will take much longer to deal with, as will the global threat from long period comets and asteroids.
• 7 Aug 04 TPS: CALL FOR POPOSALS: The 2004 Gene Shoemaker NEO Grant (deadline 1 Oct 04)
  
• 4 Aug 04 BBC: Public invited to hunt meteorites + Moon rock 'biography' revealed
• 30 Jul 04 Science: Pinpointing the Source of a Lunar Meteorite: Implications for the Evolution of the Moon + A Unique Chunk of the Moon.
• 29 Jul 04 American Astronomical Society: David Morrison is awarded the 2004  CARL SAGAN MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE IN PUBLIC COMMUNICATION IN PLANETARY SCIENCE - congratulations David.
  
• 28 Jul 04 NewSci: Stray star may have jolted Sedna
• 27 Jul 04 Space.com: Double Whammy: Asteroids Delivered One-Two Punch + White House Threatens to Veto Budget Bill Over NASA Cuts.
  
• 27 Jul 04 UT: Get Ready for the Perseids
• 27 Jul 04 BBC: Probe to 'look inside' asteroids
• 25 Jul 04 S&T: COMET SHOEMAKER-LEVY 9: A DECADE LATER,
  
• 18 Jul 04 Global and Planetary Change: Volcanic eruption frequency over the last 45 ky as recorded in
  Epica-Dome C ice core (East Antarctica) and its relationship with climatic changes (abstract)
• 17 Jul 04 S&T: 2004 COMET AWARD WINNERS - Two Australians will share the sixth annual Edgar Wilson Award for amateur
  comet discovery.
  
• 16 Jul 04 SpaceDaily: ESA Considers The Next Step In Assessing The Risk From Near-Earth Objects - no plans to detect NEOs from space (CC).
  
• 15 Jul 04 Space.com: Crash Planning: Mission to Deflect an Asteroid. [ESA mission]
  
• 15 Jul 04 Nature: Fast delivery of meteorites to Earth after a major asteroid collision.
  
• 8 Jul 04 Space Review: Giant bombs on giant rockets: Project Icarus.(CC)
  
• 5 Jul 04 UT: Asteroids Make Tau Ceti [stellar system] Lethal

• 13 Oct 03 (returned from a short holiday) S&T: A TINY ASTEROID WHIZZES BY.

 
NEO News archive (from Nov 1997)
Other Planetary Science News
Top of page

The alarm bells are ringing!

These are just a few examples of events that warn us that asteroids and comets are potentially hazardous to our civilisation.
• 8 Jun 03 The Times: Siberia meteorite flattens 40 sq miles - If it had hit Central London, Britain would no longer have a capital city. The force of the meteorite that hit eastern Siberia last September destroyed 40 square miles of forest...(CC)
  
• 21 Jun 02 BBC: Space rock's close approach - 100m diameter asteroid passed within 120,000 km of the Earth.
• Jan 2002 BBC: Space rock hurtles past Earth - 300m asteroid, less than 1 million km from Earth (the Earth travels about 2.5 million km around the Sun each day)
• May 2002 Science: Signs of a major impact 480,000 years ago, with tektites discovered in South America. There was certainly another one in SE Asia  800,000 years ago.
  
• 2001: Evidence that a huge impact was associated with the greatest extinction on record - 251 million years ago. As one scientist put it, we now have the "bookends" for the age of the dinosaurs - the huge impact that led to their rise 250 million years ago, and the Mexico impact 65 million years ago that led to their demise. That same impact led to the rise of mammals. How far away is our terminating bookmark, if we don't take action to find and mitigate the next big impact? August 2001: GSA Permian Extraterrestrial Impact Caused Largest Mass Extinction on Earth. Nature: Brimstone pickled Permian
• 2000: At the Annual AAAS meeting in Washington, Dr Benny Peiser describes the likelihood that Tunguska-type events (airbursts rather that cratering events) have played an important role in the development of civilisation over the past 10,000 years. Notes about the computer simulation. Why Files. SpaceDaily report. The Frequency and Consequences of Cosmic Impacts Since the Demise of the Dinosaurs (280K PDF)
• 1998: Astronomers discover the first (1997XF11) of several asteroids that are now known to be in a 'resonant orbit' with the Earth. In other words, they repeatedly buzz the Earth in their orbits around the Sun. A close encounter (passing through a 'keyhole') could result in the Earth's gravity changing the asteroid's orbit sufficiently to cause a collision during the next orbit. See the International Astronomy Union's List of Potentially Hazardous Asteroids.
• 1997: In a complete surprise to astronomers, Comet Hale-Bopp (a "dirty snowball" 40km across) enters the inner solar system for a brief visit. Not "as big as Texas" (the worst line in the movie Armageddon) but an object this size striking the Earth would cause an "extinction level event". Update Nov 1999: new estimates put the size of Hale-Bopp at 70km!

 .

•  July 1994: (see image) Several fragments of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 caused these black "scars" in Jupiter's atmosphere. Each patch is about the size of the Earth (inset).
• 1991: Discovery of the giant Chicxulub impact crater in Mexico - confirming the impact that eliminated the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.
• 1972: Rock samples collected by Apollo 17 (the last manned mission to the Moon) show that the age of the 85km diameter Tycho Crater is about 100 million years. An asteroid or comet about 4km across would be needed to make a crater this size. On average the Earth is struck by a microplanet this size every 10 million years. The impact rate on the smaller Moon is about one tenth of that on Earth so Tycho is within expectations (but see this note about impacts randomly distributed in time).
• June 1908: An asteroid or comet fragment about 60 metres across explodes over Tunguska in remote Siberia. 2,000 sq kilometres of forest are flattened. Under slightly different circumstances St Petersburg might had been obliterated. The Tunguska object had a kinetic energy of about 6x10^16 Joules or 15 Mt of TNT. This was around a 1000 times that of the Hiroshima bomb so the potential for destruction of cities is very serious. Tunguska was probably the largest geographically indiscriminate explosion of the last century (volcanic explosions such as Mt St Helens and major earthquakes are confined to geologically active and somewhat predictable areas but cosmic impacts can occur anywhere at any time). Events like Tunguska may occur with a typical frequency of about once per century. I have estimated that there is an annual probabilty of about 1 in 1000 that such an explosion will occur over a populated region of the Earth.
• 1910: L'Eternel Adam (The Eternal Adam) by Jules and Michel Verne. "In the distant future, Zartog Sofr-Ai-Sr discovers the journals of a man who with friends, associates and family was present at the end of the previous civilization. The journal reveals that the survivor of that civilization most certainly had an influence on the start of the one in Zartog currently lives. The civilization whose demise [by an impact] is documented is that of our present one."
• 1490 AD: 10,000 people killed in the Chinese city of Chi'ing-yang (Qingyang, Shaanxi Province) when "stones fell like rain". An exploding asteroid is a likely cause ("Rain of Iron and Ice" by John Lewis)
• 1178 AD: Monks witness the bright plume from a giant impact which might have formed the 22km diameter crater Giordano Bruno on the farside of the Moon (update 17 Mar 01 - this now seems unlikely)

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Notes for Journalists

Rocks from Space: Michael Paine's series of articles for Space.com - bibliography with many links.

Here are some possible storylines to explore:
• Feb 02: In a remarkable show of global solidarity more than 90 scientists from 17 countries have signed a letter to Australian Prime Minister John Howard, calling for a major Australian contribution to Spaceguard - the international effort to detect asteroids that might collide with the Earth. The signatories to the letter come from Australia, Canary Islands, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Israel, Italy, Poland, Romania, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Ukraine, United Kingdom and  United States of America. They include leading asteroid researchers such as David Levy and Caroline Shoemaker - famous for discovering Comet Shoemaker Levy 9 that collided with Jupiter in 1994. The letter was organised by Jay Tate from the Spaceguard Centre in the UK and Dr Benny Peiser from Liverpool John Moores University, UK. Michael Paine from the Planetary Society Australian Volunteers assisted them. A PDF copy of the letter and press release can be viewed at http://www4.tpg.com.au/users/tps-seti/pr_oz_sg.pdf.
• 19 Jan 02 CCNet: THE REAL SITUATION INVOLVING 2001 YB5 - excellent report by Brian Marsden from MPC. "The real role of  the search programs is therefore in attempting to secure the safety of future generations. If it does happen that we are tremendously unlucky and experience an unanticipated   asteroidal impact, we should therefore blame past generations for not embarking on an  adequate search."
• 10 Jan 02 SMH: Looking out for the mother of all comets - It's time for Australia to get back in the hunt for the asteroid that  could wipe out life on Earth, writes Paul Davies. Also The Age: Big bang that ends it all and MONSTER FROM OUTER SPACE JUST MISSED US (the Earth, not the USA!). The Sunday Age: Planet X - plug for Spaceguard by Paul Davies.
• Sep 2000: UK NEO Task Force report - PDF available . NASA has a summary. See our Press Release on the implications for Australia. Excellent NASA article about Near Earth Asteroids.
• Feb 2000: At the Annual AAAS meeting in Washington, Dr Benny Peiser describes the likelihood that Tunguska-type events (airbursts rather that cratering events) have played an important role in the progress of civilisation over the past 10,000 years. Also MSNBC, Discovery.com,AAAS Press Release, Simulations. Notes about the computer simulation.
• Looking for more info about how to recognise a meteorite? - see Meteorites and Their Properties - Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, University of Arizona
• Our press release of 27 May 1999 seeking Australian funding for the proposed Australian componentof the International Spaceguard Survey. Australian Current Affairs show Lateline covered the issue on 31 August 1999. Press release on 1 Dec 1999 about international developments.
• What are the chances of Spaceguard detecting a threatening object?
• US Congress triples NASA's budget for near earth asteroid detection
• Kilometre wide asteroid to whizz past the Earth in 2027and might hit in 2044. Amateur observations in Australia helped to pin down the orbit. Old photos reduce the risk even further.
• Spaceguard supported in UK Parliament (again but delayed) and raised by the Opposition in the Australian Federal Parliament. Nov 28: UK Government establishes NEO centre.
• "Collision Course" by AAO Astronomer Ken Russell was a big hit (sorry!) at the Australian Science Festival in Canberra.
• Conference in Hawaii looks at tsunami from asteroid impacts. Coastlines at higher risk from impacts than inland locations but risk is probably less than earlier estimates. More research needed on vulnerability of Australian coastlines to tsunami (whatever the cause).
• High level science committee in Australia has "Near Earth Asteroids" on its prestigous "List of activities for 1998/99" but doesn't seem to have done anything about it (the total salaries of the eminent committee members exceeds the proposed annual Australian Spaceguard budget!)
• Learn all about Near Earth Objects (NEOs) while enjoying a good fiction novel Nemesis by Bill Napier, one of the Britain's top NEO scientists (update 2002 - a bit hard to find now).
• 11 Sep 03 ACA: Asteroids - now for the good news. Talk by Mark Sonter and Michael Paine, Macquarie Uni, Sydney, 1pm. Powerpoint presentation now online.
  
• 22 Jul 03 Space.com: Search for Large Asteroids Nears Completion, Experts Ponder Gaps in Program.
  
• 2 Apr 03 OECD: Dealing with the hazard of asteroids and comets that collide with the Earth - Report from the workshop, entitled "Near Earth Objects: Risks, Policies and Actions" held in Frascati, Italy, on January 20-22, 2003, It brought together leading NEO experts and government officials to examine the NEO issue as it relates to public safety. This is the one the Australian Science Minister has been waiting for. There is also a paper by Clark Chapman.(also a Word DOC version at Clark's website)
• 2 Dec 03 NASA: STUDY TO DETERMINE THE FEASIBILITY OF EXTENDING THE SEARCH FOR NEAR-EARTH OBJECTS TO SMALLER LIMITING DIAMETERS (1.2Mb PDF) - Report of the Near-Earth Object Science Definition Team - August 22, 2003
• 2 Nov 04 NASA: Hyperbole in Reports on NEOs and Impacts
• 11 May 05 Skeptical Enquirer: Hyperbole in Media Reports on Asteroids and Impacts by David Morrison

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How much are you willing to spend on Spaceguard? Try this quick quiz!

The odds, in any one year, of a civilisation-destroying impact by an asteroid or comet 1 kilometre or more in diameter are between 1 in 200,000 and 1 in a million. The odds of being dealt a royal flush in five card poker are in the same ballpark - about 1 in 500,000. Now imagine that each year you are to be dealt a hand of poker. If you are dealt a royal flush you will be immediately executed (the equivalent of a major asteroid impact). But you can avoid playing the 'game' by paying a fine.
How much would you be willing to pay to not play this deadly gamble each year?
$10? $1000? $1 million? You decide.
Now multiply this amount by the number of human beings who pay taxes in developed nations (the ones who can best afford it). Let's say 500 million people. You have worked out, on your terms, the amount the world should spend on averting a cosmic catastrophe. As a bonus the Spaceguard Survey would find many objects smaller than 1 km which could cause regional or local devastation.


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Status of the Australian Search

The Spaceguard Survey is an international project to search for asteroids and comets which could threaten life on Earth or seriously disrupt human activities. The Australian Federal Government stopped funding (about $100,000 per year) for the Australian component of the Spaceguard Survey in 1996 and the project ceased at the end of that year. "AANEAS: A Valedictory Report" has a description of the program's many successes up to that time. Note that the Australian program tied up relatively little telescope time - it used many photographs obtained for other purposes.

That is why this is an unofficial web-site - there is no Spaceguard Survey in Australia at the present time. The web site has been started to support the re-establishment of the Australian Spaceguard Survey and to provide links to other Spaceguard-related sites.

It is evident that the Australian Government is only interested in short term issues and is unlikely to support a project which might not benefit mankind for decades, or even centuries. One problem is that the bureaucracy does not have a "pigeon hole" for this topic - it is not pure "science" and there is no tangible enemy to make it a "defence" matter. Therefore the Australian Spaceguard Survey will probably need the support of individuals, corporations and societies.
 

We are not asking for money, but an indication of support - and to determine whether the web site is a suitable way to generate this support. See also the Guestbook.

1 April 1997 Canberra Times: "Asteroid watch might resume" - Sky watching for "killer rocks" in Australia could be resurrected after intervention by Prime Minister John Howard...Science Minister Peter McGauran said Mr Howard recently asked him, Education Minister Vanstane and Defeence Minister McLachlan to examine whether asteroid spotting should continue..."we're treating it as a case where individuals can fall between portfolios becuase they don't fit neatly in one or the other"...

Update March 1999: A glimmer of hope about Australian funding for Spaceguard: The Coordination Committee on Science and Technology (CCST) is a high level committee set up by the Government of the Commonwealth of Australia, comprising representatives of departments with an interest in or responsibility for science, technology and innovation matters. It lists "Near Earth Asteroids" under "Matters receiving attention in the current financial year"! . Copy here (for the record!)

Update 10 September 1999: After a three year break a professional search for Earth-threatening
asteroids will soon begin again in Australia. The project is a collaboration between astronomers at the University of Arizona and the     Australian National University. It involves refurbishing a telescope at Siding Spring in New South Wales and providing a verysensitive electronic detector array, computer pointing control and automatic detection software.

The project will help to fill a huge gap in our ability to detect asteroids which might collide with the Earth. Until now the only professional searches were in the Northern Hemisphere - the southern half of the sky was not covered. Early detection of a potentially threatening asteroids is essential if mankind is to have sufficient time
to mitigate the threat. Even the moderate rocket power we have available today would be sufficient to deflect an asteroid away from a collision, provided that the action can be taken over decades and the asteroid is
given a little nudge during each orbit around the Sun.

Although the ANU/UA project is a welcome development renewed government funding for an additional telescope will be required if the goals of the international Spaceguard Survey are to be achieved. That goal is to
discover, within a decade, 90% of Earth-approaching asteroids with a diameter of 1 km or more. A collision by an asteroid of this size would be a grave threat to our civilisation and the death toll would likely be
in the hundreds of millions.
NASA NEO News - copy of ANU/UA Press Release
 

Update March 2002

It is now 5 years since the Australian Science Minister said he would look at restarting Spaceguard in Australia (shut down by the Howard Government in 1996). Most Near Earth Asteroids take 5 years or less to orbit the Sun. Therefore the ones that were in southern skies in 1997-98, and might have been picked up by an Australian Spaceguard, are now returning to our region of the solar system. If any are found, by the northern hemisphere search efforts, to be on a collision course then the finger will be pointed at Australia for wasting five years in the effort to avert a catastrophe. This is one of those rare cases where politicians can be made accountable for their decisions to risk the consequences of inaction - astronomers can calculate an asteroid's orbit back in time and determine whether it should have been detected by a Spaceguard telescope.

18 Mar 02 OPINION - There was good coverage of the Spaceguard issue on Australian TV yesterday. Science Minister Peter McGauran tried to accuse NEO researchers of "fear-mongering" and being "self-indulgent" - a sure sign of an uncomfortable politician. In fact none of the 91 scientists from 17 countries who signed the letter to the Federal Government earlier this year would benefit in any way from an Australian decision to fund Spaceguard - other than the knowledge that a blind spot in the south would be eliminated.  However, the reaction to the programs was overwhelmingly supportive and I think Mr McGauran should discuss this issue with his colleagues. He suggested Spaceguard would take 5% out of the $18 million budget for astronomy in Australia - a sneaky way to try and eliminate support for Spaceguard from other astronomers. We are saying it is not strictly science research and it would be more appropriate to fund it from the huge defence budget. If you agree please tell your local member of federal parliament.

• Transcripts of Deeper Impact - Ch7 Sunday Sunrise
• Transcripts of The Threat Above  Ch9 60 Minutes [Text version on CCNet]"I'm not going to be spooked or panicked into spending scarce research dollars on a fruitless [!] attempt to predict the next asteroid. I'm just not convinced that the hype and alarm and even fear-mongering is 
  
enough to justify an instant investment." --Peter McGauran, Australian Minister for Science. He should have read the letter before mouthing off!
SHOULD SPACEGUARD FUNDING BE RESTORED IN AUSTRALIA?Yes 92% No 8%
• "Live chat" on the Internet after the 60 Minutes program, with Duncan Steel and Michael Paine.
• Press Release on the 60 Minutes transcripts.


1 Feb 02: In a remarkable show of global solidarity more than 90 scientists from 17 countries have signed a letter to Australian Prime Minister John Howard, calling for a major Australian contribution to Spaceguard - the international effort to detect asteroids that might collide with the Earth. The signatories to the letter come from Australia, Canary Islands, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Israel, Italy, Poland, Romania, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Ukraine, United Kingdom and  United States of America. They include leading asteroid researchers such as David Levy and Caroline Shoemaker - famous for discovering Comet Shoemaker Levy 9 that collided with Jupiter in 1994. The letter was organised by Jay Tate from the Spaceguard Centre in the UK and Dr Benny Peiser from Liverpool John Moores University, UK. Michael Paine from the Planetary Society Australian Volunteers assisted them. A PDF copy of the letter and press release can be viewed at http://www4.tpg.com.au/users/tps-seti/pr_oz_sg.pdf.
Updates: Space.com World's Asteroid Hunters Make Political Plea to Save Earth. Recipient list added to PDF document. 5 Feb 02 Canberra Times: Australia fails world on asteroids: scientists.

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The Risk and Consequences of Asteroid/Comet Impact

The following table is based on data from the NEO weblinks and you are encouraged to follow those links for a more complete picture. There are some inconsistancies between these links due, in part, to a lack of observational information (which would be corrected by a full Spaceguard survey). Therefore the table is very approximate but it will give some idea of the threat posed by asteroid and comet impacts.

Very approx size of object *	Equiv. Megatons of TNT ("Bravo" H bomb=15Mt)	Odds in 50 years #	Consequences @
10 metres	20 kilotons	Annual	"Fireballs" burn up in atmosphere. Local hazard from debris and shockwaves. Possible trigger for nuclear warning systems. Smaller objects in much greater numbers pose a threat to spacecraft
100m	75 megatons	Earth:1 in 20  Inhabit:1 in 160	Meteor crater, Wolfe Crater, Tunguska. Local direct destruction (eg 50km radius).  Around 1 million fatalities.
500m	10,000	Earth:1 in 800  Inhabit:1 in 3,600	Regional destruction. Short-term global climate (and economic) effects. Tsunami (tidal waves) devastate coastal areas. Around 35 million fatalities.
1km	100,000	Earth:1 in 2,000  Inhabit:1 in 6,000	Medium-term global climate effects. Around 63 million fatalities.
2 km	1 million	Earth:  1 in 20,000  Inhabit:  1 in 30,000	Global catastrophe threshold. Severe long-term climate effects. Collapse of agriculture. Around 1500 million fatalities.
10km	100million	Earth:1 in 2 million  Inhabit:same!	K-T impact. Mass extinction (eg dinosaurs)

Notes:

# 50 years chosen because (a) it represents a typical adult human lifespan in the developed world and (b) it is about two human generations (our grandchildren will reach our current age in 50 years time). There is considerable uncertainty about the number of NEOs and these estimates might vary by a factor of 10. The larger impacts may have periodic peaks making the risk at some parts of the "cycle" much greater (see Shiva Hypothesis). Also some events might be due to multiple impacts, such as the Jurassic/Cretaceous boundary which corresponds to the age (142My) of at least three large craters on Earth.
* "Size" is the approximate diameter of a rock asteroid. Meteor Crater was probably caused by an iron-nickel meteorite about 50m in diameter but its destruction was equivalent to a 100m rock asteroid because it did not break up in the atmosphere. By convention, an object under 10m in diameter is called a meteoroid. Impact energy depends very much on the speed of impact which can range from 11km/s to 70km/s.
@ Estimated fatalities are based on the object striking an inhabited region of the Earth. They include indirect effects such as crop failures leading to starvation. For more details see estimates of the risk to inhabited regions of Earth. See also frequency of fatal events analysis from an impact simulation - the annual risk of a one million+ fatality event is about 1 in 5500.


These values are based on the estimated NEO population. Care should be taken when comparing the "odds in 50 years" with actual evidence of impacts with the Earth. See Poisson Distributions.

Update 25 Nov 04 Icarus (abstract): Bias-corrected population, size distribution, and impact hazard for the near-Earth objects - Globally destructive collisions (~1021 J) of asteroids 1 km or larger strike the Earth once every 0.60±0.1 Myr on average. Regionally destructive collisions with impact energy greater than 4×1018 J (~200 m diameter) strike the Earth every 56,000±6000 yr. Collisions in the range of the Tunguska event (4-8×1016 J) occur every 2000-3000 yr. This latest analysis suggests that the odds shown in the above table improve by about 5 times for 1km objects and less.


Another way of looking at the risk posed by asteroid/comet impact is to compare the chances of dying from selected causes. This table is based mostly on a paper by Clark Chapman and David Morrison and is for residents of the USA:

Cause of death	Chances
Motor vehicle accident	1 in 100
Homicide	1 in 300
Melanoma (a skin cancer*)	1 in 300
Fire	1 in 800
Firearms accident	1 in 2,500
Electrocution	1 in 5,000
Asteroid/comet impact	1 in 20,000#
Passenger aircraft crash	1 in 20,000
Flood	1 in 30,000
Tornado	1 in 60,000
Venomous bite or sting	1 in 100,000
Food poisioning by botulism	1 in 3 million

* Based on 7,700 melanoma deaths per year in the US. This medical cause of death was not covered by Chapman and Morrison. It is included here because, like NEO detection, it is an example of low-cost early detection reducing death rates. See Scientific American, Sept 2000 'Data Points'.
# Update Feb07: Despite its limitations, the Spaceguard Program has mostly eliminated a SHORT-TERM threat from a large NEO impact (the un-surveyed proportion of large NEOs has gone from 100% to about 10%). Recent estimates put the current risk at 1 in 200,000. The LONG-TERM risk (over centuries) remains at about 1 in 20,000 due to the number of large NEOs out there.


In other words, a US resident is 200 times more likely to die in car crash than from a NEO impact and 5 times more likely to die from a NEO impact than a venemous bite or sting.

Note that although an asteroid/comet impact is a very rare event, the number of people likely to be killed is greatly in excess of the other causes in the table. Compare the national US expenditure on "prevention" for all of these causes and it is evident that asteroid/comet detection is grossly under-funded.

For people living in low-lying coastal areas on the shoreline of deep oceans the risk could be several times greater due to the extra risk of tsunami.

.

Relative size of a 1 kilometre asteroid and the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

_{Note: I have cheated with this picture - it is actually asteroid Ida which is 50km across - you will have to imagine it is only 1km (in fact the small dot to the right is a 1km companion asteroid "Dactyl"). Thank you to Dr. Christian Gritzner from EUROSPACE GmbH for pointing this out!}

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A Rough Guide to Impact Frequency for Anthropologists, Palaeontologists and Geologists

If you are working in a field of science that studies past events then you need to take the possibility of cosmic impacts into consideration. Here is a quick and rough guide to the expected frequency of impact-related events:
 
• 1000s of years - airbursts similar to large nuclear explosions causing local devastation (e.g. Tunguska)
• 10s of 1000s of years - impacts of sufficient size to cause regional devastation and "years without summer" around the world. Disruption of agriculture.
• 100s of 1000s of years - ocean impacts causing devastating tsunami for low-lying coastal areas, land impacts causing global cooling for weeks. Devastation of agriculture. Regional extinctions.
• Millions of years - ocean and land impacts causing global darkness for weeks, freezing conditions for months, major disruption of food chains. Some global extinctions
• 100s of millions of years - catastrophic impacts causing mass extinctions, lava eruptions?, initiation of tectonic plate movement? Major global extinctions.
• Billions of years - sterilizing impacts that boil away the oceans. Major geological disruption. Seas of lava formed.

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FAQs

• Has anyone ever been killed by a meteorite?  See John Lewis's book "Comet and asteroid impact hazard on a populated Earth" for a discussion of this subject and a very long list of incidents. It is likely that 10,000 people were killed in the Chinese city of Chi'ing-yang  when "stones fell like rain". There are several reports of people being injured by meteorites. John Lewis sums up: "No one has ever been killed by a meteorite in the presence of a meteoritist and a medical doctor!"
• What are the environmental consequences of asteroid impacts?
• What are the risks of major impacts with the Earth and possible death tolls?
• Where are all the craters? Most fatal events do not leave a crater - they result from an ocean impact (with many of the fatalities due to tsunami) or Tunguska-like fragmentation over land. The proportion of fatal events that involve a crater on land gradually increases from less than 1% for events with around 100 fatalities to 16% for events with around 1 million fatalities (see simulation results).
• Are places like Sydney at greater risk due to the danger of tsunami generated by impacts? Yes - several times greater than inland locations.
• Can anything be done if an asteroid if found to be on a collision course with Earth? Yes- we have the technology to nudge a rogue asteroids into a harmless orbit but only if there is early warning - the purpose of  Spaceguard.
• Have international experts confirmed there is a threat from asteorids? Yes - including
• UK NEO Task Force Report
• AIAA report pointing out the need for a Spaceguard telescope in the soutern hemisphere (pdf)
• What can I do? It is important that politicians are aware of community concerns about the asteroid issue. If you agree that Australia needs a Spaceguard program please tell your local member of federal parliament. There is no official organisation within Australia that is able to get a major search program underway at this stage. For example, this web page is prepared on a voluntary part-time basis.

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NEO Web Links has moved (getting too large for this page!)

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The worldwide Spaceguard program should be able to detect several thousand "candidate" asteroids/comets over a fifteen year period for less than US$10 million per year. Compared with worldwide defence expenditure, and space exploration budgets, this is very cheap "insurance" for mankind!

Media Contacts

Since there is no Australian Spaceguard Survey at present general media inquiries in Australia should be directed to research organisations such as the Anglo-Australian Observatory (phone Sydney 02 93724800) or Mt Stromlo(Canberra 02 6249 0230) or the links at ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY OF AUSTRALIA. We will, however, try and answer email enquiries about matters covered on this web site.
Note that webmaster Michael Paine is not the "head of Spaceguard Australia", as indicated in the November/December 1999 issue of The Planetary Report. He is New South Wales Coordinator of The Planetary Society Australian Volunteers. Currently there is no "Spaceguard Australia" but a company of that name used to be operated by Duncan Steel .

Visitor Number since the system last reset itself! (Sep 2002?)

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Awards

Links²Go
Asteroids

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Prepared by Michael Paine (home page) : email.
His views - not necessarily those of people involved in the Spaceguard Survey or

The Planetary Society Australian Volunteer Co-ordinators or the Planetary Society
For last update see News