
When the next big impact will be, nobody knows.
But the pressure is on to predict—and intercept—its arrival.
"Sooner or later we will get... a minor or major impact," Rolf Densing, who heads the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany, told AFP ahead of International Asteroid Day on Friday.For now, there is little we can do.
It may not happen in our lifetime, he said, but "the risk that Earth will get hit in a devastating event one day is very high."
And yet, the first-ever mission to crash a probe into a small space rock to alter its trajectory suffered a major setback when European ministers declined in December to fund part of the project.
"We are not ready to defend ourselves" against an Earth-bound object, said Densing. "We have no active planetary defense measures."Hitherto relegated to the realms of science fiction, tactics could include nuking an incoming asteroid, using lasers to vaporize it, sending a space "tractor" to drag it off course, or bumping it into a new direction.
But first, we need to be able to spot the threat.
Astrophysicists monitoring the risk classify objects into sizes ranging from a few millimetres to behemoths 10 kilometres (6.2 miles) across—the size of rock that wiped out non-avian dinosaurs some 65 million years ago.
The smallest type enter Earth's atmosphere daily, burning up prettily as shooting stars.
End of days
The largest occur once every 100 million years, and the next impact could well ring in the end of human civilization.
But when would it happen?
So far, experts have managed to list more than 90 percent of asteroids in the dino-killing range, and determined that none poses an immediate threat.
A much bigger concern is the whereabouts of millions of asteroids in the 15- to 140-metre (49- to 460-feet) range.
One such object, a 40-metre space rock, caused the largest impact in recent history when it exploded over Tunguska, Siberia, on June 30, 1908—the date on which Asteroid Day is marked.
Comment: See the SOTT Focus piece: Tunguska, Psychopathy and the Sixth Extinction which shows the profound parallels that exist between events of the kinds described here, and the dominance of pathological types holding seats of power.
The blast flattened some 80 million trees over 2,000 sparsely-populated square kilometres (772 square miles)—an area bigger than greater London.

"Imagine that this type of asteroid would fall in a very populated area like... Paris or Germany, I mean this is something that would be really, really a catastrophe," said Nicolas Bobrinsky, programme manager of the European Space Agency's Space Situational Awareness project, which surveys asteroids.At least the ones it knows of.
The Chelyabinsk impact in 2013, for example, caught everyone unawares.
A once-a-decade category rock of about 20m exploded in the atmosphere over central Russia with the kinetic energy of some 27 Hiroshima bombs.
The resulting shockwave blew out the windows of nearly 5,000 buildings and injured more than 1,200 people.
"Now that we have discovered most of the (asteroids) that are about a kilometre in size and larger, the goal is to discover most of the ones which are (up to) about 140 m," said Patrick Michel, an astrophysicist with France's CNRS research institute.Another unknown is long-period comets: wanderers of the Solar System which can take centuries or millennia to orbit the Sun, and whose passage has never been recorded.
"This is the threshold—if an object of this size impacts the Earth—for regional damage at the scale of a country or a continent."
Eye on the sky
Europe is setting up a network of telescopes to provide us with a heads-up.
Scheduled for completion in about two years, it
"will scan systematically the sky every night and any asteroid which is coming... would be detected with a warning time of approximately two to three weeks," said Bobrinsky.What is needed is cooperation between politicians and space agencies—and especially money.
This is admittedly "not much, but it's better than what we have now," he added.
At the very least, it would allow for cities to be evacuated, or a shockwave warning to be issued.
"Contrary to all other natural risks that we face on Earth, like tsunamis, earthquakes and things like that, this is the only one that we can predict," Michel said.
An asteroid deflection system would require "something in the order of 300-400 million euros" (dollars), according to Bobrinsky—a minuscule amount compared to the cost of disaster.
The United Nations declared June 30 International Asteroid Day to raise public awareness about what event organizers describe as "humanity's greatest challenge".
It was initiated by astrophysicist and Queen guitarist Brian May, and moviemaker Grigorij Richters who directed the sci-fi film 51 Degrees North about an asteroid headed for London.
The initiative has the backing of dozens of scientists, astronauts, and celebrities, many of whom will take part in a special 24-hour live broadcast Friday, with round-the-clock asteroid programming by the European, Japanese and American space agencies.
Do such 'challenges' divert from 'what lies beneath' as 'trouble abroad' by which to grow or persist a military industrial complex of insane proportion?
Are terror threats the only, best - or even a true way to 'unify' people behind a 'common' cause or have we already a true Cause in common - the denial of Which operates as the flesh-framed mind of fear and guilt in dissociated deceit and struggle.
The blind CANNOT lead anywhere BUT darkness. A fear-driven world is driven insane - but valuing a true Sanity has to extend from a true foundation. New horizons equal new market opportunities. Perhaps the danger from space can stand in for the Climate Catastrophe 'consensus'?
However I note the observations of Velikovsky and others as to the collective mythic record - along with geological features in accord with a catastrophic view of even fairly recent history - that reveals the nature of an Electric Universe. This EU operates vibrationally in ways we have hardly a clue - and our physicalized perception is but a part of a very specific focus within experiencing Existence.
The fear-minded are compelled under tyrannous thinking to attracts the very thing they seek to eradicate or get rid of - because consciousness is creative - even when the Creative is suppressed, denied, mapped out, substituted for, rendered unconscious, demonized and defended against. But fear know not what it does - because it is a state of dissociation.
The archetype of 'something out there' seeking or intending your destruction is a reflection of our own mis-creative imbalance.
To the 'materialist' of a primarily external cause this seems absurd - but the quantum 'collapse' of perception operates at a frequency of billions of frames per second - and yet the Creative is not absent from the use of itself to seem limited, ineffectual and fragile.
Perhaps I am wrong - but I see the Shift occurring as the re-wakening of - and to - that which had been closed off and lost to awareness. For such is my active desire and purpose. But of course the fear-mind is entrenched against exposure of its psychic-emotional foundations - and seems to be the denial or obstruction to such purpose. But awareness of choice remains our reception to creative perspective - for the power to choose to shut it down (or abuse and lose it) - is the power to not persist in that choice and align with what Is.
What you give out is what you get back. Fully appreciated, this sowing and reaping is not 'in time causality' - but creates time to serve the need or active desire. Allow that most of what we sow is 'unconsciously' active and something of our creative capacity is revealed in its negative consequence. Further attempts to manipulate fear only engender it. To re-open the 'territory' of our trauma - but as a willingness and desire of healing is not 'looking for trouble' nor assigning heroic roles of self-specialness to ourselves. It is an opening to the genuine movement of our being instead of the use of it to generate an oppositional overlay of 'define, predict and control'. To abide in willingness of the true of being is challenging - but in a different way - for fear is to be noticed, owned and brought into awareness - instead of being 'attacked' and imprinted by 'unknown' Enemy whose hateful intent is all the while our own unrecognized feedback.
A tough nut to crack may call for a hammer. A sense of sin and guilt calls down (or interprets all as) punishment - and seeks to align in power and protection set in terms of a god (cause) of terror. In between a rock and a hard place the call for love is revealed where fear's distortion had rendered a world of attack and hate justified and sanctified as the replacement for and death of love. Beneath the lie is the capacity to know and feel the true. Perhaps if we do not cultivate this, we will not have the abidance of it. By our choices, do we grow who we accept ourselves to be - and suffer to experience in such a frame while the choice is active. A false framing is simply not true of who you feel and know yourself to be. But it may yet seem a protection against what you yet fear you are - and so is 'chosen' as the 'devil you know'. But DO you?