New Study Shows Why You Should Care About Asteroid Attacks

What's This?

A visualization of an asteroid headed toward Earth.

Image: B612 Foundation

By Eric Larson2014-04-26 00:30:14 UTC

More than 26 nuclear-sized explosions have transpired in the Earth's atmosphere since 2000 — all of them caused by asteroids.

The B612 Foundation, a California-based asteroid-hunting group (it's a real thing), released the news on Earth Day as part of a presentation at the Seattle Museum.

The findings come from the Nuclear Ban Treaty Organization, which uses monitors stationed around the world to detect nuclear detonations. They picked up the two dozen-plus explosions across the globe, which ranged in energy from one to 600 kilotons, between 2000 and 2013.

The majority of the rocks exploded in the atmosphere at too high of an altitude to do any damage — any surviving chunks fizzled into dust or small pebbles by the time they reached the surface. Still, both organizations argue, it's reason enough to pay more attention to what's raining down from the stars.

The B612 Foundation is raising funds to construct the world's first orbiting telescope, with the primary goal of monitoring asteroid activity from outside the Earth's atmosphere. Ed Lu, former astronaut and founder of B612, told Mashable back in Janurary that the telescope, which they're estimating will cost $250 million to build, most of which is coming from private donors, will be able to detect more than 200,000 near-Earth asteroids within its first year of operation.

The current record for most ground telescopes is about 1,000 per year. Most organizations believe they've detected more than 90% of nearby asteroids that are one kilometer or larger in diameter. Smaller ones, like the 18 meter-round rock that exploded above Chelyabinsk, Russia, on Feb. 15, 2013, can still slip through their radar undetected.

"Because we don’t know where or when the next major impact will occur, the only thing preventing a catastrophe from a 'city-killer'-sized asteroid has been blind luck," Lu says in a statement. "Less than 10,000 of the more than a million dangerous asteroids with the potential to destroy an entire major metropolitan area have been found."

See also: The Debris From a London-Sized Asteroid Strike Would Block Out the Sun

And while B612's findings may seem alarming, Denton Ebel, Ph.D., curator of meteorites at the Museum of Natural History in New York City, says he's not surprised.

"These are airbursts. It's common for meteorites to blow up into pieces when they enter the atmosphere," he says.

"These things do happen quite frequently. But, as we saw with the rock that exploded in Russia last year, these things can still cause damage. If some have more iron than rock, for example, they'll likely have a better chance of actually striking the surface."

Ebel also spoke to us in January during a Google Hangout about the Chelyabinsk meteor. As he argued back then, he still believes awareness about — and, hopefully, more government funding for research into — asteroids is something most people overlook.

"Dinosaurs deserve what happened to them. They didn't understand what was going on," he says, laughing. "We live in a shooting gallery. The big ones have been found, but the smaller ones — we don't know. Just because it's not raining now doesn't mean it's not going to pour tomorrow."

Space.com reported earlier in the week that budget cuts at NASA had put a hold on most asteroid research, for the time being.

The B612 Foundation and Nuclear Ban Treaty Organization did not follow up on multiple requests for comment.

NASA's Plan to Save Earth From Killer Asteroids

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Topics: Asteroids, Climate, Space, US & World, Video, Videos, World