Categories: Asteroids

Watch PBS NOVA’s “Asteroid—Doomsday or Payday?”

An asteroid, docile in space but deadly to Earth. Image credit: NASA/JPL

Last night, the US PBS television stations aired a new show from the series NOVA, “Asteroid — Doomsday or Payday.” It portrayed the two sides of asteroids: if a large asteroid collides with Earth, it could set off deadly blast waves, raging fires and colossal tidal waves. But on the other hand, some asteroids are loaded with billions of dollars’ worth of elements like iron, nickel, and platinum, and companies like Planetary Resources are trying to figure out how to take advantage of those elusive resources in space.

You can watch the entire episode below. As with previous shows, viewers in other countries might have difficulty watching the show.

For additional reading, here’s a great article by PBS’s NOVANext about why more isn’t being done about asteroid detection and deflection.

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Here’s more info about the B612 Foundation that is featured in the show.

Planetary Resources has some info about why mining asteroids will fuel human expansion into the cosmos,(read here) — watch their video, below:

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy has been with Universe Today since 2004, and has published over 6,000 articles on space exploration, astronomy, science and technology. She is the author of two books: "Eight Years to the Moon: the History of the Apollo Missions," (2019) which shares the stories of 60 engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make landing on the Moon possible; and "Incredible Stories from Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos" (2016) tells the stories of those who work on NASA's robotic missions to explore the Solar System and beyond. Follow Nancy on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Nancy_A and and Instagram at and https://www.instagram.com/nancyatkinson_ut/