A group of scientists, joined by a member of Congress, used the 100th anniversary of the Tunguska asteroid event last week to draw attention to their belief that the United States is not doing enough to defend the planet against near-Earth objects.
“We are not prepared at this time to prevent the massive death and destruction that would occur,” said Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., at the Pasadena, Calif., offices of the Planetary Society.
Although no one is positive what caused the Tunguska event, which flattened trees over an 800-square-mile area on June 30, 1908, most scientists think that an asteroid about 150 feet across exploded in the air above the remote river valley in eastern Russia.
No one was killed in the event.
The most scrutinized asteroid is Apophis, which has about a 1-in-45,000 chance of hitting Earth in 2036, according to Don Yeomans, manager of the Near-Earth Object Program Office. Apophis is about five times the suspected size of the Tunguska object.
But Alan Harris, a senior research scientist at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, said the greatest danger comes from the objects we haven’t identified.
