TUCSON, AZ (Tucson News Now) -
Call it out of this world technology and
its being developed right here in Tucson.
A
team of University of Arizona researchers are using grant money to better
detect dangerous asteroids that could collide with earth.
The idea is to find any
asteroids big enough to pulverize something on earth, like a city or a state
or small country.
Giant asteroids have hit earth
before and scientists in Tucson are working to ensure it doesn't happen
again.
University of Arizona
computer scientists have a grant to take the substantial amount of information
we have on asteroids now and use modern techniques to reprocess it and see what
more information they can get from it.
Plus, as new equipment and
technology is developed, scientists will need a way to keep up with that new
information and not be overwhelmed.
But, what if astronomers
do spot a killer asteroid heading toward earth?
"There are people who
are actually researching plans to deflect asteroids off of their orbits so that
they will not hit the earth. The more time that we have, the more time that we
have to research, develop a tool that will actually go out and do the work, and
the longer that tool will have to get its job done. So it can be done much
more cheaply and efficiently if we know now instead of later," said
Jonathan Myers, UA computer science graduate student.
In case you're wondering, Tucson News Now's Barbara Grijalva did ask if anything big enough to do major damage is heading our way.
Myers said "No. The earth is safe to our knowledge."
Copyright 2012 Tucson News Now. All rights reserved.
