Phy 111 Group 8 Mass Extinctions

Lucky we, meaning earth have our cosmic guardian. This guardian is Jupiter. Jupiter has stable circular orbit around our sun. Jupiter’s huge gravitational field sweeps in or scatters away many of the dangerous objects that could potentially pose a threat to our Earth. Without Jupiter Earth would be 10,000 times more likely to be stuck by comets. Yet we are still not out of danger.

                   This is why NASA has created the Spaceguard Survey.  This guard can track most of the asteroids that could possibly hit Earth. It tracks the top 20,000 potentially hazardous asteroids. All of these objects must be at least 3,000 thousand feet in diameter or greater. Unfortunately there is not enough funding for NASA to run the entire program.  It can only track about 80% of the objects that could pose a threat to Earth and not all as Congress originally mandated.