Resolution of the Council of Europe on asteroid hazard
COUNCIL OF EUROPE
Parliamentary Assembly
Resolution
on the detection of asteroids and comets
potentially dangerous to humankind
There are two broad categories of space objects which
have the potential to impact our planet: comets and asteroids. They
are generally known among planetary scientists as Near-Earth
Objects (NEOs). Their total population is unknown, but the number of
Earth-Crossing Asteroids with sizes larger than about 1 km is
estimated to be about 2000. These objects are the most dangerous and only
a tiny fraction of them have been detected to date.
Considering that the explosion close to the Earth's surface of
even an object with a diameter of 50 m can have the effect of a 10 megaton
nuclear weapon, the consequences of larger impacts would be disastrous on a
global scale. The best known, recent examples are the Tunguska explosion of an
NEO about 60 metres in size (over Siberia in 1908, resulting in the destruction
of over 2000 square km of largely-unpopulated forest), and the violent
impacts into Jupiter of the fragments of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 (in July 1994);
those fragments were only about 0.5 km in size, but caused devastation over a
larger area than that of the Earth. Traces of other smaller impacts on our
planet are frequently being discovered, as well as fossil records of
cataclysmic impact events in the past.
The significant amount of information gathered over the last few
years on asteroid and comet collisions indicates how they can trigger
large-scale and large-standing ecological catastrophes, sometimes leading to
mass extinctions of species; thus such impacts represent a significant threat
to human civilisations.
Although, statistically speaking, the risk of major impacts in
the near future is low, the possible consequences are so vast that every
reasonable effort should be encouraged in order to minimise them.
The Assembly therefore welcomes various initiatives - i.e. the
Spaceguard Survey report published by NASA, the creation of
the Working Group on Near-Earth Objects by the International
Astronomical Union, and the recent decision of the NEO community to set up
a Spaceguard Foundation to
coordinate the efforts at an international level - as important steps paving
the way towards the development of a world-wide surveillance programme aimed at
discovering all potentially-hazardous NEOs and tracking their orbits forward by
computer so that any impact could be foreseen some years in advance, allowing
preventive actions to be taken as necessary.
The Assembly invites governments of member states and the
European Space Agency (ESA) to urge the setting-up and development of the
above-mentioned Spaceguard Foundation and to give the necessary
support to an international programme which would:
establish an inventory of NEOs as complete as possible with an
emphasis on objects larger than 0.5 km in size;
further our understanding of the physical nature of NEOs, as well as
the assessment of the phenomena associated with a possible impact, at various
levels of impactor kinetic energy and composition;
regularly monitor detected objects over a period of
time long enough to enable a sufficiently-accurate computation of their orbits,
so that any collision could be predicted well in advance;
assure the coordination of national initiatives, data
collection and dissemination, and the equitable distribution
of observatories between northern and southern hemispheres;
participate in designing small, low-cost satellites for observing
NEOs which cannot be detected from the ground, and for investigations which can
most effectively be conducted from space;
contribute to a long-term global strategy for remedies
against possible impacts.
Strasbourg, March 20, 1996
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