Asteroid Quotations

We have the capability - physically, technically - to protect the Earth from asteroid impacts. We are now able to very slightly and subtly reshape the solar system in order to enhance human survival.

Bringing an asteroid back to Earth? What's that have to do with space exploration? If we were moving outward from there, and an asteroid is a good stopping point, then fine. But now it's turned into a whole planetary defense exercise at the cost of our outward exploration.

Lots of science fiction deals with distant times and places. Intrepid prospectors in the Asteroid Belt. Interstellar epics. Galactic empires. Trips to the remote past or future.

When you look at the origins and evolution of life on Earth, it's been severely affected by asteroid impacts through history.

The Moon is a ball of left-over debris from a cosmic collision that took place more than four billion years ago. A Mars-sized asteroid - one of the countless planetesimals that were frantically churning our solar system into existence - hit the infant Earth, bequeathing it a very large natural satellite.

Americans who read the papers or watch Jay Leno have been aware for some time now that there is a slim but real possibility - about 1 in 45,000 - that an 850-foot-long asteroid called Apophis could strike Earth with catastrophic consequences on April 13, 2036.

The stars look the same from night to night. Nebulae and galaxies are dully immutable, maintaining the same overall appearance for thousands or millions of years. Indeed, only the sun, moon and planets - together with the occasional comet, asteroid or meteor - seem dynamic.

When you have an asteroid threatening Earth, it's uncertain where it's going to hit until the last minute; the decision to take action has to be coordinated by the international community.

If a gigantic asteroid were barreling toward impact with our planet, you can bet there would be at least a few members of Congress who would insist on leaving it alone, either because they would see it as a warning shot from the Almighty or because a mining company with a savvy team of lobbyists had laid claim to the big rock.

What if an asteroid were to strike planet Earth? What could we possibly do to prevent it? However many guys we have working on this problem, it can't possibly be enough.

We know enough about this asteroid to know it is a potential threat but we still have a few more years to watch this thing and get a better handle on what it is going to do.

Setting the images in motion reveals a lot about the asteroid itself, ... The movies give us a dynamic look at changes in the shadowing and shading of surface features. By examining features with different illumination, geologists get a better look into the history of the asteroid.

Maybe an asteroid will hit or something will happen to the magnetic polar fields, ... Or maybe the guy who was making calendars ran out of paper. Who knows?

If we decide to deflect an asteroid we will need to know just where the center is, and we need to know something about its mechanical (compositional) strength.

But it's possible the orbits of the asteroids today show some memory of having had a planet in the asteroid belt.

If an asteroid is found to be at an impact trajectory with Earth you will have many decades of notice. And it turns out that you only need to change its velocity by a very small amount in order to prevent a collision.

We may have had a 10th and 11th planet that collided. It's also possible that the outward migration of Neptune scattered comets and small planet bodies, inducing collisions in the asteroid belt. The close passing of a neighboring star could have had a similar effect.

Research into manned spaceflight is shifting from low-Earth orbit to destinations much further away, like Mars and the asteroid belt. But society will have to invent many new technologies before it can plausibly send people to those distances.

Remember this is a proof-of-concept engineering mission, not a science mission. We really do have to learn how to operate in the vicinity of an asteroid if we are ever going to use them for space resources or if we are going to have a reliable capability to deflect a dangerous one.

Threats that could wipe out the bulk of life on earth abound. Planetary catastrophe could come in the form of a killer asteroid impact, the eruption of massive supervolcanoes, a nearby gamma ray burst that sterilizes the earth, or by human-driven environmental collapse.

This saves you from having to land on the asteroid and then trying to stabilize yourself on a flying pile of rock and debris which is spinning all the time.

We think this is a tight, narrow ring of rocky objects similar to those in our asteroid belt, except this ring is five AU from its star, instead of two-to-three AU, the distance between our asteroid belt and the sun.

With the agency's go-ahead, we can proceed with this intriguing mission that will explore two asteroids from deep in the heart of the asteroid belt.

What happens if a big asteroid hits Earth? Judging from realistic simulations involving a sledge hammer and a common laboratory frog, we can assume it will be pretty bad.

Asteroids may be different from one another. If you find an asteroid on a collision course, you may not know what that particular one looks like.

Dinosaurs are very popular, and the asteroid theory is sexy, it's a perfect story, and in the past few years it's all you've read in the popular press.

It would be helpful to have a similar type of mission go to an asteroid and compare the results, ... That mission is Deep Interior. It has been proposed in the past to NASA's Discovery program, but has not been accepted.

It wouldn't be cheap to do. But having an asteroid hit us wouldn't be cheap either.

That tells you something about its origin. Does it come from the asteroid belt or does or come from a comet? What are all the different pathways that material makes on its way to Earth? Those are the things we're interested in.

It raises a question of why we still see zoning in the asteroid belt. It is a big mystery now. It's kind of really exciting.

The line between comet and asteroid is no longer clearly drawn. The old rules probably don't apply.

I feel sorry for the newscasters you know? We can turn it off. But that's their job and they have to read these stories and they're just coming up on the teleprompter they don't know what's coming up. and they have to go through these change of emotions. That.. "There were no survivors...And next Which candybar helps ya lose weight! Still to come! Is an asteroid headed towards earth...But first where to find the cheesiest pizza in town! Also, a disturbing study finds that studies are disturbing...