Asteroids whizz by earth every year without incident, but the planet is overdue for a direct hit. A hit would cause mass extinction akin to that of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.
According to Mr Jonathan Tate of Spaceguard UK, we don't have to twiddle our thumbs and await the inevitable. He said people, and more specifically governments, are not doing enough to prevent an asteroid hit that could cause their own demise. Mr Tate spoke on behalf of Astronomy Ireland last night at Dublin City University, as part of Science Week.
He is calling for a co-ordinated search programme to identify potentially dangerous objects by positioning six large telescopes around the world - three in the southern hemisphere, three in the northern hemisphere. Currently there is only one station, located in the US, that tracks dangerous asteroids and many near-misses are only discovered after the fact.
Mr Tate said six telescopes would allow an organised tracking system to determine an asteroid's orbit. "Then we could determine whether or which of these objects is potentially dangerous in the future."
He said 95 per cent of threats could be catalogued within 10 years. "That would give us 40 to 50 years' advance notice of the next possible collision." If a collision were to occur within the next few years, "we wouldn't have time to stop it".
Mr Tate said the consequences of a hit would be disastrous. For instance, a 100-metre object could destroy an entire city. A one-kilometre object would cause an explosion and blanket the planet in a cloud of dust. He said 25 per cent of the population would die instantly, then the ensuing earthquakes, hurricanes, global cooling and mass starvation would probably take care of the rest. "Our civilisation would not survive it."
A 10-kilometre object would cause mass extinction such as happened with the dinosaurs, and a 100-kilometre object would sterilise the planet. "It's quite a significant threat but luckily it doesn't happen that often."
He said once a search programme was in place, the best prevention method would be redirection - changing the orbit of the asteroid.
Mr Tate will speak in Cork tonight in Jurys Hotel at 8 p.m.