Feb. 15 asteroid flyby should be global wakeup call

In June 1908, scientists believe an asteroid exploded in the Earth's atmosphere several miles above a remote area of Siberia, leveling an estimated 80 million trees over an 830 square-mile area. /Image via webodysseum.com


When it comes to celestial objects striking the Earth, size definitely matters.

While the miles-wide asteroid that struck the planet 60 million years ago and wiped out the dinosaurs gets all the headlines, scientists believe smaller chunks of ice and rock are capable of leveling entire metropolitan areas. Earth likely will be spared an explosive encounter with asteroid 2012 DA14 tomorrow, but the planet apparently wasn't so lucky in 1908.

In what is widely known as the Tunguska Event, an asteroid or comet about the size of 2012 DA14, which is about as big as a cruise ship, entered the Earth's atmosphere on June 30, 1908, then exploded several miles above a remote area of Siberia. Millions of trees were flattened in the blast zone, which spanned an 830 square-mile area. The explosion, estimated to be more than 1,000 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945, knocked people from their feet as far as 40 miles away.

Given the potential for such collisions to wreak cataclysmic destruction, you would think governments around the world would consider these so-called Near Earth Objects a top priority. “It’s like Mother Nature sending a warning shot across our bow,” Don Yeomans, a scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said of 2012 DA14 in The Washington Post last week.

It's easy to argue not enough is being done to track Near Earth Objects and to develop technology to alter their course if necessary to protect Earth. Scientists believe they have discovered 95 percent of Near Earth Objects capable of wiping out most terrestial life on the planet. But Near Earth Objects the size of 2012 DA14 are a different story.

"Saying we’re only going to find the civilization-killers is a (sub-par) threshold,” former U.S. astronaut Ed Lu told The Washington Post. “We can do better than that.”

Asteroid 2012 DA14 is about 150 feet wide and is estimated to weigh more than a cruise ship. On Feb. 15, the asteroid is expected to pass 17,000 miles from Earth. Many communications satellites orbit the planet at an altitude of 22,000 miles. /NASA image