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Astronomers involved in Near Earth Objects searches are responding to a suggestion that potentially hazardous asteroids should be kept secret from the public. The suggestion was made by Dr Geoffrey Sommer, of the Rand Corporation in Santa Monica, California, and a scientific advisor to the U.S. Government, who said that in his opinion, secrecy might be the best option if scientists were ever to discover that a giant asteroid was on course to collide with Earth. Dr Sommer told the American Association for the Advancement of Science that �If you can't do anything about a warning, then there is no point in issuing a warning at all.�
Scientists across the world, however, say they are mystified by Dr Sommer�s statements. Dr Alan Fitzsimmons, a leading UK NEO astronomer at Queen�s University, Belfast, and advisor to the NEO Information Centre said �Observation results are automatically placed on public websites for all to see and as new observations come in, public websites are automatically updated every 24 hours for all known NEOs. Governments have no direct control over this process. Hence they have no possibility of controlling the information.�
Whilst there certainly are scenarios where a potentially hazardous object would be difficult to deflect, current scientific opinion suggests that mitigation of an impact hazard is within the capability of current technology. In fact elements of both NASA and European Space Agency (ESA) missions have been designed specifically to test techniques that could be used to avert impacts.
Astronomers point out that if an asteroid or comet is ever found that has a high probability of colliding with the Earth that the discovery is likely to be years, if not many tens of years before any predicted collision. Even if governments wanted to keep a discovery a secret, it would not be secret for long. �It would be like trying to keep the existence of the Moon secret� said Dr Matthew Genge, a meteorite scientist at Imperial College, London, �it is in the sky for everyone to see, sooner or later, and probably sooner, someone would notice it. No one country has a monopoly on NEO observations.�
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