gy right now to alter most meteor orbits away from earth. But if we never discover a meteor intercepting the Earth, these meteor ‘weapons’ are useless. Because much less than half of all near Earth objects are still undiscovered, we most likely will not have any warning before a meteor hits. But, if one of the meteor detection programs actually discovers an asteroid on a collision course, we will probably have many years of warning. In the next few decades, most near Earth objects will be found because any object that is going to hit Earth will swing near our planet many times in its orbit before it hits. So, the warning time is essentially very long or none at all. Even if we only have less than a year warning, and we are unable to alter the meteor’s course, we will still have time to build underground shelters and stockpile supplies for long-term survival. The key to preventing collisions is early detection.The chance of a large (more than 1 km) meteor being on an intercepting course with the earth in the next hundred years is very small. Consider that we also have a good chance to modify the course of the meteor and the chances of collision are insignificant. The human race is doing the best it can to protect it’s home by striving to discover all the asteroids with orbits near Earth’s. Chances are good that a large meteor impact is not in the near future....
