{"product_id":"cosmic-impact-understanding-the-threat-to-earth-from-asteroids-and-comets","title":"Cosmic Impact: Understanding the Threat to Earth from Asteroids and Comets","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAs end-of-the-world scenarios go, an apocalyptic collision with an\nasteroid or comet is the new kid on the block, gaining respectability only in\nthe last decade of the 20th century with the realisation that the dinosaurs had\nbeen wiped out by just such an impact. \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNow the science community is making up for lost time, with\nworldwide efforts to track the thousands of potentially hazardous near-Earth\nobjects, and plans for high-tech hardware that could deflect an incoming object\nfrom a collision course - a procedure depicted, with little regard for\nscientific accuracy, in several Hollywood movies.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAstrophysicist and science writer Andrew May disentangles\nfact from fiction in this fast-moving and entertaining account, covering the\nnature and history of comets and asteroids, the reason why some orbits are more\nhazardous than others, the devastating local and global effects that an impact\nevent would produce, and - more optimistically - the way future space missions\ncould avert a catastrophe.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Wordsworth Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40313668632754,"sku":"9781785784934","price":225.0,"currency_code":"ZAR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0562\/9191\/8002\/products\/102532_611e462c8dfca0.47382177_9781785784934.jpg?v=1643075426","url":"https:\/\/www.wordsworth.co.za\/products\/cosmic-impact-understanding-the-threat-to-earth-from-asteroids-and-comets","provider":"Wordsworth Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}