Space

By LEON JAROFF

Asteroids are becoming serious business. Just last month a House subcommittee recommended a threefold increase in spending on observation of near-Earth objects. And only a year after astronomers triggered a short-lived scare by suggesting that asteroid 1997 XF11 might someday strike Earth, another newly discovered asteroid is causing concern. This one is 1999 AN10, a kilometer-wide hulk that in 2027 could hurtle past us as little as 20,000 miles away. First spotted in January, the asteroid attracted little attention when Italian astronomers posted preliminary calculations of its orbit on their website. But when these results were repeated on CCnet, a widely read e-mail network, some astronomers were outraged. They felt an unwarranted repeat of last year's scare would be the astronomical equivalent of crying wolf and could lead to public indifference. But news of 1999 AN10 spurred other astronomers to track the asteroid. They posited that the tug of terrestrial gravity during the 2027 flyby could change the asteroid's orbit enough to threaten Earth during a 2044 passage. Indeed, say astronomers, 1999 AN10's path will remain dangerously close to Earth's orbit for the next 600 years. Maybe the budget increase will be passed by then.

--By Leon Jaroff