In case you've doubted the potential impact of individual effort, consider this story
about people who watch the skies for objects that might collide with earth and cause serious damage.  On June 19, 2004, astronomer David Tholen spotted a 1,000-foot-wide stone asteroid that appeared likely to collide with earth in 2029.  Now calculations show that it will merely miss us by15,000 to 25,000 miles and might become a regular visitor as a result of earth's gravitation.

All life is not at stake, however.  That takes something six miles in diameter or bigger.  Writer Guy  Gugliotta says this asteroid is a "'regional' hazard -- big enough to flatten Texas or a couple of European countries with an impact equivalent to 10,000 megatons of dynamite -- more than all the nuclear weapons in the world."

Guy Gugliotta writes in the Washington Post on April 9, 2005, "Astronomer David Tholen spotted it last year in the early evening of June 19, using the University of Arizona's Bok telescope. It was a new "near-Earth object," a fugitive asteroid wandering through space to pass close to Earth."  He goes on, "Six months later, Tholen's object was spotted again in Australia as asteroid '2004 MN4.'  In the space of five days straddling Christmas, startled astronomers refined their calculations as the probability of the 1,000-foot-wide stone missile hitting Earth rose from one chance in 170 to one in 38."  Subsequent information showed that it would be a near miss so we could rest easier.

Well, it may encourage you to know that the USA is doing something about this problem. He writes,  "NASA's task -- which Congress imposed in 1998 -- is to find 90 percent of the estimated 1,100 near-Earth objects that are one kilometer (0.6 miles) or greater in diameter by 2008. As of mid-March, JPL's database included 762 of these."  And legislation has been proposed this year to expand that search to "every object 100 meters (328 feet) across or larger, of which there may be 300,000."  So far 3,265 near-Earth objects of all sizes have been seen.

Needles in haystacks?  Perhaps.  Of course, needles can kill even in haystacks.


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