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Scientists: Earth Isn't Ready If Asteroid Targets Planet

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Los Angeles Times

Published: July 5, 2008

A group of scientists, joined by a member of Congress, used the 100th anniversary of the Tunguska asteroid event this week to draw attention to their concern that the United States is not doing enough to defend the planet against the dangers posed by near-Earth objects.

"We are not prepared at this time to prevent the massive death and destruction that would occur if an object from space hit the Earth as it did in Tunguska," said Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., at the offices of the Planetary Society.

If an asteroid the size of the one thought to have exploded in the air above Tunguska, in Siberia, were to explode over Los Angeles, he said, the destruction would range over much of Southern California.

Although no one is positive what caused the Tunguska event, which flattened trees over an 800-square-mile area on June 30, 1908, most scientists think an asteroid about 150 feet across exploded in the air above the remote river valley in eastern Russia. No one was killed in the event.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has established a Near-Earth Object Program Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., to monitor potentially dangerous asteroids.

The most scrutinized asteroid is Apophis, which has about a 1-in-45,000 chance of hitting Earth in 2036, according to the Near-Earth Object Program Office.

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