Frequency of impacts

Because there are far fewer large NEOs and long-period comets in space than smaller ones, the chances of a collision decrease rapidly with increasing size. The impact-hazard community—primarily scientists with an interest in the issue—has defined a global catastrophe to be an impact that leads to the death of one-fourth or more of the world’s population. An impact by a 1-km- (0.6-mile-) diameter NEO, the smallest believed capable of causing such a catastrophe, is estimated to occur about once per 100,000 years on average, based on the assumed population in space of such objects. On the other hand, an impact by a 100-metre (328-foot) NEO, the smallest believed capable of causing regional devastation, is estimated to occur about once every 1,000 years on average. (An impact from a body the size of the Chelyabinsk meteorite of 2013 [17 metres (56 feet)] is expected to occur once per century.) The hazard posed by long-period comets is less certain because fairly few such objects are known, but it is thought to be perhaps as high as 25 percent of that for NEOs.

The major difference between the threat posed by the impact of an asteroid or comet and that posed by other natural disasters is the extent of the damage that could be done. In some parts of the world at high risk for floods or earthquakes, the chances of dying in such an event are 100–200 times greater than the risk of dying from a cosmic impact. What distinguishes the impact hazard, however, is that it is the only known natural disaster, with the possible exception of an exceedingly large volcanic eruption, that could result in the death of a significant fraction of Earth’s population and, in the most extreme case, the extinction of the human species.

NEO search programs

The outlook for detecting long-period comets that are specifically on a collision course with Earth is poor. Long-period comets, by definition, would likely be discovered on their way into the inner solar system only a few months—or, at best, a few years—before impact. (It is possible that an NEO destined for a collision with Earth also might not be discovered until the “last minute,” but the probability of finding it many years before impact is much higher because NEOs make frequent passages near Earth before colliding with it.) Although it might be feasible to detect long-period comets as early as about six months before impact, this knowledge would be useful only if a practical technology were already in place for preventing the collision. And if the comet is not on a collision course, then it is of little immediate concern, because it will not return for at least 200 years and perhaps not for millennia.

In principle, the outlook for identifying the larger NEOs is more promising. Using current technology, it is possible to find virtually all NEOs with diameters greater than 1 km (0.6 mile) and most of those half as large.

A number of loosely coordinated programs to search for NEOs have been instituted. Among them are several sponsored by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in the United States and others in China, Japan, and Italy (as a joint Italian-German project). Their objective is to find objects capable of causing global catastrophe were they to hit Earth. In 1998 NASA stated its official program goal to be the “detection of 90 percent of the NEO population larger than 1 km within a decade.” As of 2020, about 900 NEOs at least a kilometre in size were known.

These search programs use charge-coupled-diode (CCD) sensors, similar to those in digital cameras, on reflecting telescopes with primary mirrors in the 1-metre- (40-inch-) diameter range to obtain three or more images of the same region of the sky over a short period of time, generally some tens of minutes. The images are then compared with one another to find objects that have moved rapidly. The distance that the object has moved between images and its brightness provide clues to its distance and size. For example, fast-traveling, bright objects are almost certainly very close to Earth. A definitive orbit, however, is required before an accurate prediction can be made of the object’s true distance and future path through space. This generally requires several days to acquire an “arc” of sufficient length to allow computation of an accurate orbit.

For every NEO a kilometre or larger in size, there are thousands more as small as about 100 metres (328 feet). An impact by a 100-metre object has the explosive power of about 100 megatons of TNT, roughly equivalent to the largest man-made nuclear explosions. (If the blast of the Tunguska event had an energy of 15 megatons, as some damage-based estimates have placed it, then the colliding object likely had a diameter of about 30–50 metres [100–164 feet].) Search programs in the 1990s discovered several NEOs in this smaller size range passing close enough to Earth to attract attention in the popular press. In fact, for each one detected, hundreds of unobserved objects passed just as close or closer. Dozens in this range were larger than 100 metres and thus large enough to cause a devastating tsunami or, if one were to hit land, to destroy an area the size of a small country. The chance of an impact by a 100-metre NEO is about 1 in 10 per century. For each actual impact, however, there will be numerous near misses. Many of these NEOs are certain to be detected as a by-product of searches for the larger objects capable of causing global catastrophes.