In grappling with the threat of doomsday rocks from space, Hollywood has always been far ahead of the federal government, cranking out thrillers full of swashbuckling heroes, rockets and nuclear blasts that save the planet . Now Washington is catching up.

On wednesday, the nation's agencies that build civillian rockets and nuclear arms sealed an agreement to start working together on planetary defense. The goal is to learn how to better defect comets and asteroids that might endanger cities and in the case of vety large intruders, the planet as a whole...

Comets and asteroids are part of the cosmic rubble left over from the birth of the solar system. Comets, made of dirty ice visit earth's neighbourhood only when knocked loose from their home orbit beyond pluto. That make their movement somewhat unpredictable.

Asteroids, made of rock, fly mostly in a belt between Mars and Jupiter. Their orbits can be calculated with great precisions if astronomers can spot the dim objects...

In 2013, the extraterrestial threat gained new credibility after a 7,000ton rock -roughly 60 feet wide and technically a meteoroid smaller than an asteroid- exploded over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk injuring 1500people, mainly as shards flew from scattered windows. The dazzling light from the rocky intruder blinded eyes and burned skin even though the temperature that day was far below freezing.

The two agencies- NASA and National Nuclear Security Administration- have long studied such threats on their own. They have surveyed the cosmic debris, designed rocket interceptors and run supercomputer simulation to see if a nuclear blast could nudge a large asteroid off course...

This year, NASA unveiled a website that lets visitors explore the cratered surface of Vesta, one of the solar system's largest asteroids at more than 300miles across. The agency also released a computer APP that- at least in theory- lets amateur astronomers help the agency find new asteroids...

READ MORE: NEW YORK TIMES
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/19/science/agencies-make-plans-to-step-up-planetary-defense.html

Nice! But where's the source?

RobinHez:
Nice! But where's the source?

*modified*

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