Scientist says NASA ready for asteroid impact

If an asteroid came close to Earth, NASA has ways to deflect the asteroid’s orbit to protect the people of Earth, a senior scientist for NASA said Monday during a lecture in Rawles Hall.

“If we want to protect our Earth against cosmological events, asteroids are where we need to start,” scientist David Morrison said. “Us being so smart, could we survive an asteroid impact?”

During the 1990s, Morrison worked on a team that helped NASA develop ways of protecting earth from imminent asteroid attacks, like the one that killed the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.

“It’s the only natural hazard we could stop,” he said. “With enough warning, we could change its orbit so it would not hit us.”

Morrison, a national expert on asteroids and comets, was the inaugural speaker in the Frank K. Edmondson Lecture series.

The series was created to honor the late professor.

The IU Department of Astronomy and friends of Edmondson created a fund to begin the Lectureship, according to a press release.

Edmondson was a professor for IU’s Department of Astronomy until his death in 2008 at the age of 96.

“He was a fixture,” Morrison said of Edmondson. “He was a grand old man of astronomy.”

Edmondson was the second hire of IU’s Astronomy Department and was the department’s chair for 35 years, the release said.

He attended IU, where he earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees, and went on to receive his Ph.D in Astronomy from Harvard in 1937.

Edmondson later helped IU become one of the seven universities named to the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, the release said.

“He studied asteroids,” Morrison said. “Which is something hardly anyone did.”

Morrison went on to say he thought Edmondson was especially notable as a teacher.

“He built up the astronomy department here,” he said.

Just like Edmondson, Morrison has dedicated his life to studying asteroids.

Morrison said he was honored to be invited by the IU Astronomy
Department.

This was his first trip back to Bloomington since he was in high school.

Morrison is also a fixture of astronomy in his own right.

He is considered a “founder of astrobiology,” according to the release. Morrison has spoken in front of Congress about the dangers of asteroids four times.

“One of the greatest dangers we face is an impact,” Morrison said.

He spoke of the incident in Russia when an asteroid exploded over the city of Chelyabinsk in February.

The asteroid was 65 feet in diameter and had the strength of two dozen atom bombs, according to the release.

It exploded 14 miles above the ground, sparing the Earth from its first impact with an asteroid since 1908, Morrison said.

The Chelyabinsk incident was key for reasons beyond astronomy, Morrison said.

“One of the worries was, would an impact be mistaken for a military attack, and cause a nuclear war?” Morrison asked. “The good news is the Russian military had no hint of activity.”

Morrison had more good news for the audience. It was a discovery made by his team.

“There is no asteroid out there that is as large as the one that killed the dinosaurs,” he said.

“We will not go the way of the dinosaurs.”

Follow reporter Evan Hoopfer on Twitter @EvanHoopfer