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(meteorobs) potentially hazardous objects (PHA's)




 To All List Members:

Recently I have been posting warnings of doom from near Earth object
impactors to members of this list to see what kind of reaction I could get
from a group of people most likely to be responsive to such matters. People
that look with educated eye at the cosmos and have expanded knowledge of
the subject far and above the average citizens of the globe. 
I am sure that the subject for some members is common knowledge but I was
very surprised and a little disappointed at the skeptical nature of many
and others being so tied up in minutia of the details.
Many members of the list I feel can care less about potentially hazardous
objects from space because they are interested in beautiful objects from
space streaking across the sky or to collect, buy and sell these objects. 

I now see that it people like yourself, very aware of the comos, can not be
aroused into action there is little hope for the species called Homo
sapiens. 

Resources are needed by research teams like Spacewatch, NEAT, BAO in
Beijing, LINEAR, ODAS and getting a observatory team in the southern
hemisphere like Duncan Steel had in Australia on line again.  Write your
governments and demand attention for these research projects. At least this
is the response I was hoping for.

The earth has woke up in recent years to discover that the planet has been
impacted in the past and will be impacted in the future. Civilizations in
the past have disappeared due to impacts but our civilization has the
knowledge and technical know how to change the events of the future. The
question is do we have the will and foresight to discover, prepare and
prevent this certain future.  A good analogy is this: "We were asleep and
we woke up to find ourselves in the middle of a six lane highway with cars
speeding by and just missing us." Can we and will we prevent being hit by
these objects speeding past Earth before one slams into us is the big
question?

Victor 

PS: Brian Marsden of cfa Harvard recently suggested I pick up this
following book on the subject if I had not already done so.  Brian is
certainly concerned by the same issues I have talked about in the foregoing
paragraphs. I pass this bit of advise on to you all.

[N.Y. Academy of Sciences, on "Near-Earth Objects"?  (This is volume
822 in the Academy publications.)  This book is the proceedings of a
conference held at the United Nations in New York in April 1995 and as such
is one of the most recent authoritative publications on the NEO subject.
It updates to some extent the very excellent and enormous Gehrels "Hazards"
book, which was the proceedings of the earlier conference at the University
of Arizona in January 1993.]


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Victor Noto - Kissimmee, Florida USA
vnn2@phoenixat.com
http://www.phoenixat.com/~vnn2/BIGROCK.htm
Website theme quote:
"Life really is a Rock and 
the Big Rock giveth and taketh away all life!!" 
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