While colonizing the heavens above us is important to our species, defending our home world ranks even higher on the scale.Fortunately NASA (along with China) will be scanning the sky above looking for asteroids that can pose serious threats to our Earthen cradle.
(Computer World) By the end of this year, NASA hopes to find about 90% of the largest asteroids that could potentially strike Earth, a blast that could throw dust into the atmosphere and cause firestorms and acid rain. These asteroids can be as large as mountains but are at least 1 kilometer (3,280.8 feet) in diameter. NASA estimates that 900 of these objects are in potentially hazardous range of Earth.
Defending our planet from space rocks will probably become a priority long after we expand our presence throughout the solar system.
Even if our species were able to send millions of individuals to colonize Mars, Ganymede, Callisto and Saturn's Titan, losing Earth would be devastating for our species, as there is no known world like it.
Hopefully lessons learned defending our planet on Earth can be duplicated elsewhere, as an asteroid impact can be one of the few objects that can turn a solar city into a mass graveyard.
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You can either visit the stars or watch them from afar.
But if you choose the former, you'll definitely get a better view.
~Darnell Clayton, 2007
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