Today on Discovery Enterprise we present an exciting episode of the
acclaimed PBS documentary series NOVA titled Meteor Strike concerning the
Chelyabinsk Event, when a 10,000 metric ton exploded over the Russian city of
Chelyabinsk with thirty times the explosive yield of the atomic bomb that
exploded over the Japanese city of Hiroshima on August 6th, 1945.
This event highlights the urgent need to establish a planetary defense
system to protect the Earth from future potentially deadly impact events.
A potential disaster scenario where a sizable asteroid or meteorite
explodes over or impacts a major urban center can no longer be treated as mere
science fiction fancy. It happened last February when over 1,000 people were
actually injured. And, it will one day happen again.