Watch PBS NOVA's "Asteroid—Doomsday or Payday?"

By Nancy Atkinson - November 21, 2013 at 5:02 PM UTC | Planetary Science
asteroid_large.jpg

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.

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 Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com