St Patrick's Day 2012 Public Lectures

"The Science of Armageddon: an Update"

Mr Jay Tate, Director of the Spaceguard Centre, Knighton, Wales

"The Science of Armageddon: an Update", will explain how the Earth has a long and violent history of collisions with extraterrestrial bodies such as asteroids and comets, and how some of these impacts have been large enough to cause huge environmental upheavals, mass extinctions of life and severe changes to global climate and geography. Massively more destructive than the most powerful nuclear weapons, such impacts represent the most damaging natural hazard likely to end civilization as we know it. The talk will review the nature and extent of the Near-Earth Object (NEO) impact hazard and bring us up to date with the latest understanding in the field: how the risk can be dealt with and what is currently being done. Jay Tate is one of the worldтАЩs leading authorities in this subject, having led efforts over the past fifteen years to highlight the risk to civilization posed by these extreme events and improve public understanding of natural events about which, fortunately, we have no direct experience.

Lecture

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Questions and Answers

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Last Revised: 2012 April 24th