Engineering Researcher Seeks Answers To Asteroid Deflection
An Asteroid Deflection Research Center has been established on the Iowa State campus to bring researchers from around the world to develop asteroid deflection technologies. Despite the lack of an immediate threat from an asteroid strike, scientific evidence suggests the importance of researching preventive measures. Sixty-five million years ago, a six-mile-wide asteroid struck near the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico and created the 106-mile-diameter Chicxulub Crater. Most scientists now believe that a global climate change caused by this asteroid impact may have led to the dinosaur extinction. Seventy-four million years ago, a smaller one-mile-wide asteroid struck in central Iowa, creating the Manson Crater. Now covered with soil, it is the largest crater in North America at more than 23 miles across.