DUNCAN STEEL, Ph.D., is a space researcher with wide experience in the field of asteroids, comets, and meteors. He is currently Director of Spaceguard Australia and Vice President of the International Space-guard Foundation.
Steel estimates that a massive asteroid capable of wiping out a fourth of humanity can be expected to collide with Earth roughly once every 100,000 years. In the immediate offing, he maintains, we can expect smaller cataclysmic impacts similar to the Tunguska explosion of 1908, which devastated a vast expanse of Siberian forest (he believes that an asteroid blew up in the atmosphere above the Tunguska River). Written in clear prose for the layperson, this gripping report advocates the creation of an international search program to detect, intercept and divert Earth-menacing asteroids and comets. Steel, an English astronomer based in Australia, served on two NASA committees investigating potential impact hazards. He endorses the theory that asteroid collisions caused not only the dinosaurs' extinction but also many other mass extinctions during the past few hundred million years. Steel's hypothesis that the Taurid meteoroid stream poses the major risk to Earth is bound to be controversial, as is his speculation that the Taurid Complex of meteor showers produced huge storms and Tunguska-type explosions on Earth around 4500 years ago‘and that Stonehenge was built to observe and predict these cataclysms. Newbridge Astronomy Book Club alternate. (May)
Here is a recipe for a fascinating literary dish: Take the history of comet impacts on Earth. Add the latest scientific findings from astronomers and geologists. Stir in related theories about the origin of Stonehenge and the extinction of dinosaurs. Mix well with statistics on the chances of future terrestrial collision and the evidence from the recent comet explosion on Jupiter. Spice liberally with science fiction-like images of catastrophic scenarios. Bring to a simmer with government plans for detection and interception of an approaching "death star." Serve immediately to horrified millions. The result is guaranteed to satisfy the appetite of interested lay readers for all the facts, scientific beliefs, and uncertainties about the danger of comets and asteroids crashing into Earth. The head chef is author Steel, an Australian astronomer and world authority on comet hazards. The appetizer is a foreword by Arthur C. Clarke. Gourmet reading!‘Valerie Vaughan, Western Mass. Regional Lib.
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