The U.S. federal government is summoning the world's top scientists to an urgent conference this summer to plan defenses against an attack that could wipe out an American city or disrupt the whole country's infrastructure.
No, it's not global terrorism.
The scientists will map ways to combat an asteroid attack, a cosmic sucker punch like the collision that killed the dinosaurs 65 million years ago and flattened a Siberian forest in 1908.
While the world's attention is focused on the real threat of terrorism, the theoretical asteroid menace has been garnering a surprising amount of behind-the-scenes attention.
Britain's Royal Astronomical Society hosted an international meeting of experts on the asteroid impact threat in December. In January the world's astronomers petitioned Australia's government to fund a special asteroid-detecting telescope. In February NASA announced the "Workshop on Scientific Requirements for Mitigation of Hazardous Comets and Asteroids," which......
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