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CCNet 74/2002 - 26 June 2002
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"Here's the scenario: An asteroid slams into Earth, kicking up a huge plume of debris that settles into a disk around the planet, like the rings of Saturn. The ring's massive shadow chills the tropics and sends Earth into a 100,000-year freeze. University of New Mexico climate researcher Peter Fawcett has found evidence that something like that might have happened 35 million years ago during the Eocene epoch. Rocks from that time show a layer of asteroid debris, followed by evidence of a 100,000-year cold spell."
--The Associated Press, 25 June 2002

"As the international community, led by the UK, begins to take the hazard posed by NEOs seriously, is this a sensible time to declare that 'everything is under control'? Obviously it isn't, and the US, with its paltry $3.5 million per year expenditure, desperately needs significant international assistance - that much is self-evident. I suppose that a cynical individual could claim that this whole exercise is an inexplicable attempt to persuade the OECD, the UN and other international agencies that are evincing interest that the US has the problem licked, and that no one else need to bother. Daft eh?"
--Jay Tate, The Spaceguard Centre

"THERE'S something of a stand-off between Lib Dem leader Charles Kennedy and the party's excitable MP Lembit Opik over the future of Planet Earth. Opik, you'll recall, wants the government to track asteroids heading for the planet. And his crusade has been boosted by news that an object from outer space has just missed Earth. There are those who think Opik is off his rocker and Kennedy may well be one of them because he is still showing no signs of supporting him. Their chilliness dates back to a party conference when Kennedy missed out on headlines because Opik was monopolising the media with asteroid talk. 'I was getting the same coverage as the party leader and I think he still remembers that,' Opik tells me."
--The Mirror, 25 June 2002

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1. IMPACT-TRIGGERED ICE AGES? RESEARCHERS SAY ASTEROID IMPACT COULD ALTER CLIMATE . . .
The Associated Press, 25 June 2002

• ASTEROID ENVY . . .
The Mirror, 25 June 2002

• NASA GODDARD A PARTNER ON COMET CRUISE . . .
Mark Hess

• U.S. SHOULD HARNESS SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY CAPABILITIES TO FIGHT TERRORISM . . .
The National Academies, 25 June 2002

• SCIENTIFIC REQUIREMENTS FOR MITIGATION OF HAZARDOUS COMETS AND ASTEROIDS . . .
Erik Asphaug

• 34TH LUNAR AND PLANETARY SCIENCE CONFERENCE . . .
Ron Baalke

• CONFUSED AT SPACEGUARD . . .
Jonathan Tate

• THE SPACEGUARD FOUNDATION . . .
Duncan Steel

• UNDER FIRE FROM COSMIC FALL-OUT . . .
Hermann Burchard

• SIMULATING EARTH IMPACT . . .
John Lighton

• THE KAALI LAKE IMPACT EVENT . . .
Jens Kieffer-Olsen

• NEO-SEARCHING . . .
Kagirov Radik

...And, Finally:

• WITTY BRITS TEST ROCKET POWERED BY LAUGHING GAS . . .
Ananova, 25 June 2002

All currently available at CCNet.

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Dan

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