Worried by a recent incident in which an erroneous report of a doomsday asteroid caused worldwide headlines, government scientists have begun an exercise in the ultimate spin control: How to handle news of a disaster that could destroy the planet.
In a sharp departure from tradition, NASA now wants astronomers to keep news of any Earth-threatening comet or asteroid secret for 72 hours. But at least some scientists believe that the effort is doomed. If an asteroid were hurtling earthward, they argue, NASA would probably not be able to keep the news to itself even long enough to double-check orbital calculations, let alone enough time to prepare a policy.
That argument, however, has not deterred the National Research Council, which on Wednesday urged astronomers to find a better way to report the discovery of asteroids or comets that might threaten Earth.
Already NASA is putting together new procedures to ensure that its senior officials can control any announcement of a potential planetary threat. An international working group is mulling guidelines. And in June, the research council plans to convene astronomers and experts in risk assessment, hazard management and communications at UC Irvine to consider how best to break the news of potential disaster.
Astronomers are wrestling with the problem even as they accelerate the pace of such discoveries with new detectors to sweep the space around the planet. Thousands of near-Earth objects probably will be discovered in the next decade, the National Research Council panel said, and any of them could pose a delicate problem of public disclosure.
Indeed, in the past eight weeks, astronomers have quietly discovered 12 large asteroids that will approach uncomfortably close to Earth, but safely bypass it, in the decades ahead--as many as they usually spot in an entire year.
However, not one galvanized public attention the way doomsday news of a shard of celestial shrapnel called asteroid 1997FX11 did briefly--and incorrectly--in March.
That asteroid had something the others didn't--a press release from professional astronomers.
Embarrassment at that professional faux pas and chagrin over causing unnecessary public alarm is driving the current effort to find ways to handle such discoveries without imposing unwanted secrecy or threatening the openness of scientific inquiry.
"It is a very emotional topic with many people," said panel chairman Ronald Greeley, a planetary scientist at Arizona State University in Tempe.
