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recommended reading |
| Our Mission | Comet/Asteroid/News Archive | How You Can Help |
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recommended reading |
| Our Mission | Comet/Asteroid/News Archive | How You Can Help |
| Non-Fiction — click on an image or a link for order information | Fiction | Videos |
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Comets
and Asteroids: Ice and Rocks in Space This book is part of the |
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Douglas Henderson draws on well-respected theories from physics, geology, astronomy, and paleontology to re-create the asteroid impact that ended the Cretaceous Period and caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. | |
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This book examines the historical record of Earth impacts, outlines the risk to our species, and assesses our chances of being around to welcome the next millennium. Our planet travels in an orbit swarming with rocky asteroids and comets. It's only a matter of time before one of the thousands of known near-Earth objects arrives directly in our path, with frightening results; but this threat isn't new — scars left on the Earth's surface prove conclusively that our planet has taken frequent direct hits throughout history. | |
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The scientific community has argued for decades over the origin of giant craters on Earth. In a highly readable fashion, Kathleen Mark recounts the fascinating detective story of how scientists came to recognize meteorite craters, both ancient and relatively recent. | |
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Gerrit L. Verschuur offers an eye-opening look at catastrophic collisions with our planet, painting an unsettling portrait of the possibility of new collisions with Earth, exploring potential threats to our planet, and describing what scientists are doing to prepare for this awful possibility. Every day something from space hits our planet, Verschuur reveals. In fact, about 10,000 tons of space debris fall to earth every year, mostly in meteoric form — but meteors are not the greatest threat to life on earth, the author points out. The major threats are asteroids and comets. | |
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Covering all aspects of asteroid investigation, Curtis Peebles shows how ideas about the orbiting boulders have evolved. He describes how such phenomena as the Moon's craters and dinosaur extinction were gradually, and by some scientists grudgingly, accepted as the results of asteroid impacts. | |
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This volume examines in depth the reality of the threat from outer space, and proposes measures that can be initiated to deal with it. Bringing together a hundred scientists from all over the world, it focuses on technical problems of searching for and identifying hazardous comets and asteroids and of intercepting and altering their orbits. | |
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Pulitzer Prize-winning astronomer Carl Sagan and writer Ann Druyan explore the origin, nature, and future of comets, and the exotic myths and portents attached to them, showing how comets have spurred some of the great discoveries in the history of science, and raising some intriguing questions about these brilliant visitors from the interstellar darkness. | |
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Nemesis: The Death Star by Richard Muller This book is a first-hand account of the genesis, discovery, and aftermath of the only viable scientific theory to explain a bewildering variety of phenomena, in fields ranging from geology to astronomy to paleontology — to the dramatic disappearance of the dinosaurs. Read Chapter One here and read more about the Nemesis Theory here. | |
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Rain of Iron and Ice by John S. Lewis This volume surveys meteorites (which reach the surface of the earth) and meteors (which don't) — their origins, types, consequences, and prospects for influencing future events. The author, a noted planetary scientist and impact crater expert, traces the history of religious and scientific beliefs about meteorite falls, cometary eruptions, and asteroid near-misses, with a review of the literature of such catastrophes, while reviling other "experts" for scoffing at oral tradition, and for ignoring the vast number of eyewitness reports over the centuries. | |
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Meteorite Craters and Impact Structures of the Earth by Paul Hodge During its five-billion-year history, Earth has been hit countless times by asteroids and meteorites. Over 150 crater-producing events have been identified, and this book describes 139 sites worldwide at which evidence of the impacts can be seen. They range in age from recent craters formed in this century to the highly eroded billion-year-old ancient craters. For each site there is a summary table giving location, size, age and present condition. Maps are included where necessary. | |
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Cosmic Catastrophes by
Chapman and Morrison In this delightful and accessible book, planetologist Chapman and astronomer Morrison look closely at the evidence of catastrophes, and their profound effects on the history of the solar system. They examine the debate over whether a six-mile-wide asteroid hit the Earth 65 million years ago, killing the dinosaurs and drastically changing the course of evolution. Other cataclysms are postulated to explain how the enormous craters on the moon and other planets were created; nuclear winter, the greenhouse effect, and the eventual death of the sun are also considered. | |
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Comets have wreaked their special havoc on Earth and other planets. Noted comet-hunter David Levy tracks the paths their icy, rocky masses take around our universe, and investigates the enormous potential that future comets have to directly affect the way we live on this planet, and what we might find as we travel to other planets. | |
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In this first realistic assessment of fatality and damage rates due to cometary and asteroid impact, the previous estimates spanning 100-year to 10,000-year time scales are shown to be too low, because they neglect rare but highly lethal bombarding objects. Included with the book is a floppy diskette containing the computer program "HAZARDS", with Monte Carlo impact simulations. |
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Named for its discoverer, Comet Tomiko is a "sun-grazer", an interstellar wanderer with a hundred times the mass and ten times the speed of other comets. In less than five days, Tomiko will crash into the Moon, shattering it into a cloud of superheated gas, dust, and huge chunks of rock that will rain down on Earth, causing chaos and killer storms, possibly tidal waves inundating entire cities... or worse: a single apocalyptic worldwide "extinction event". In the meantime, the population of Moonbase must be evacuated by a hastily assembled fleet of shuttle rockets. There isn't room or time enough, for everyone. |
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A giant comet collides with Earth causing earthquakes, tidal waves, and destruction of unbelievable proportions; but for the survivors, the terror has just begun. Monumental devastation will sweep across the globe if the newly-discovered Hamner-Brown comet collides with the one major obstacle in its path: Earth. For a world gripped by comet fever, fascination quickly turns to fear. And only those who survive the impact will know the even greater terror, when rich and poor, politicians and killers, turn to each other — or against each other — and the remnants of humanity grow savage to battle for what little remains. | |
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In AD2130, a new celestial body is discovered heading toward the Sun. Given the name Rama, this object is a vast cylinder about 31 miles long and 12 miles across, with a mass of at least ten trillion tons. The spaceship Endeavour is sent to Rama and its crew has three weeks to explore its hollow interior. Inside the vessel they discover a completely self-contained world — a world that has been cruising through space for perhaps more than a million years. | |
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As an asteroid named Kali hurtles toward earth on a collision course, a lone spaceship with a mass-driver to alter the asteroid's path attempts to carry out its perilous mission — unaware that others are simultaneously working for Earth's destruction. In the capable hands of science fiction veteran Clarke, a standard cosmic disaster plot becomes a lucid commentary on humanity's place in the cosmos. | Advertise on this Site |
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Planetary Defense (DVD/download, 2007, Space Viz Productions) This video is built around interviews with many of the leading scientists working on Near-Earth Objects (NEO) and on various aspects of NEO hazard mitigation. |
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Comet Collision The story behind NASA's Deep Impact probe, which collided with comet Tempel 1 in July 2005, providing experts with new data about the comet's composition and structure. State-of-the-art spacecraft animation and stunning location photography bring the high-profile mission to life, offering a look at the planning, preparation, and outcome. | |
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3 Minutes to Impact (VHS, 1999, Unapix)
Commissioned by Discovery Channel, this two-part special is a gripping analysis of the threat to Earth by the asteroids and comets that hurtle through the inner Solar System. A powerful mix of animation, location shooting, and contributions from the world's leading planetary scientists. Eugene Shoemaker, Carolyn Shoemaker, David Levy. | |
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This science-fiction disaster drama begins with a comet that is discovered heading toward Earth with the collision only one year away. A team of astronauts is dispatched to destroy it, but when the plan fails, one million Americans are selected through a national lottery to take shelter in an underground bunker. Robert Duvall, Téa Leoni, Elijah Wood, Vanessa Redgrave, Morgan Freeman, Maximilian Schell, Jon Favreau, Leelee Sobieski. | |
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A science-fiction action thriller about an asteroid on a collision course with Earth, raining fireballs down on Manhattan. A plan is carried out to send an oil-drilling team into space to split the asteroid into two parts that will be diverted in opposite directions, missing our planet. Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thornton, Ben Affleck, Liv Tyler. Winner of two 1999 Saturn Awards for Best Director and for Best Science Fiction Film. | |
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This National Geographic documentary examines the asteroid impact theories of Eugene and Carol Shoemaker [discoverers of the Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet] one of which is that a one-mile-wide asteroid, if it hit Earth, would destroy all life on the planet. Several other noted experts in the field offer their own opinions on the likelihood of a fatal asteroid hitting Earth. Eugene Shoemaker, Carolyn Shoemaker, David Levy. | |
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A group of people in Dallas, Texas — doctors, firefighters, astronomers, and their families — are affected when it is discovered that a huge asteroid is heading for Earth, with Dallas as its target. Bradford May, Michael Biehn, Annabella Sciorra. Winner of the 1997 Emmy Award for Special Visual Effects. | |
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Hong Kong and New York are hit hard by tidal waves as Soviet and American scientists combine forces in a race against time to save the world from a global disaster caused by an impacting giant meteor. Sean Connery, Natalie Wood, Karl Malden, Brian Keith, Martin Landau, Trevor Howard, Henry Fonda. | |
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No one believes the announcement by Dr. Cole Hendron (Larry Keating) that a rogue star named Bellus is on a collision course with Earth, other than crippled financier Sydney Stanton (John Hoyt), who finances the construction of a gigantic spaceship to transport selected survivors from the doomed Earth to a planet named Zyra orbiting the foreign star. Eventually a worldwide lottery is held to select those who will be rescued by Stanton's spaceship. Richard Derr, Barbara Rush, Peter Hansen. Winner of the 1952 Academy Award for Best Special Effects. |
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