Asteroids: Deadly Impact

In the wake of the success of Deep Impact, the Hollywood film featuring Morgan Freeman and his race against an asteroid hurtling towards Earth, Asteroids: Deadly Impact uses animation to illustrate the effect an asteroid colliding with our planet would have.

Following the studies of geologist Eugene and Carolyn Shoemaker, the film explains how, in 1993, Carolyn identified a fragmented comet on a collision course with the planet Jupiter. The impact of the Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet, recorded by the Hubble Space Telescope in July 1994, was estimated to far exceed the megatonnage of the world's entire nuclear arsenal, substantiating the possibility and effects of an impact.

The Shoemakers are sounding the alarm to educate people about the potential threat of such an occurrence to Earth and to help to build support for research into preparation and prevention of such an impact in the future.