Josh Goldstein investigates why people will pay more money to see a movie about Asteroids than for a protection system to prevent dangerous asteroid impacts. In an interview with Ed Lu for Planet Money, on NPR's All Things Considered, Lu talks about a two-step process: first...
The aim of Asteroid Day is to inform the public and raise awareness about the possibility that asteroids can collide with the Earth in the future. Today was chosen to highlight the risk because on the same day in 1908, a 30m object entered the...
Scientists around the world held what they billed as the first annual Asteroid Day on Tuesday, giving lectures and hosting panel discussions promoting projects designed to detect threats from space before it’s too late. The scientists who organized the events said humans must do a better...
June 30 is the 107th anniversary of the biggest asteroid strike on the Earth in recorded history. In 1908, an asteroid measuring perhaps 90-190 meters across struck Siberia, damaging over 2,000 square kilometers of Russian forest – an area that measures larger than New York’s five...
(CNN) - Imagine this: It's early morning in 1908. A man sits at a trading post in Vanavara, Siberia, when he is suddenly launched into the air by a powerful force that creates an effect that makes him think his shirt has caught fire. That was...
An asteroid big enough to destroy an entire city hits Earth once every hundred years -- but smaller impacts happen all the time. In December last year a group of more than 100 prominent physicists, artists and business leaders lead by Queen guitarist and astrophysicist Brian...
Scientists and spacefliers will be focusing attention on near-Earth objects when the first-ever Asteroid Day plays out on Tuesday — not so much to raise money, but to raise awareness about the potential threat from above and what to do about it. That last part is...
It is a cold January afternoon on the peak of Mt. Bigelow, an hour's drive north from Tucson, and the wind burns my face as I watch the colors of the desert sunset bleed into the foothills of the Catalina mountains. This is the home of...
With less than one week to go before the first official Asteroid Day on June 30, local organizers are making final preparations for more than 50 public events worldwide to increase education and awareness about asteroids and how to better detect them. June 30 is...
The world's first Asteroid Day will be held on 30 June in a bid to raise awareness about future impact events and the threat they pose to the planet. Asteroid Day was announced in December 2014, when a global coalition of scientists, astronauts, physicists and celebrities...