FARMINGTON Is the earth in danger from asteroids? Could reality match the action of Armageddon, the Bruce Willis blockbuster tale about an asteroid hurtling toward earth?


Local physics professor Christopher Magri doesnt think we ought to put too much stock in the Hollywood solution, explaining Wednesday why rockets and bombs would probably not be capable of stopping an asteroid from hitting Earth.


Using radar data, an international group of astronomers including Magri did an in-depth study of asteroid 1999 KW4, which could potentially hit the earth sometime in the far-flung future, trying to understand what makes objects like it tick.


University of Maine at Farmington Associate Professor Magri teaches physics to college students, but he is one of only a handful of astronomers in the world who do radar studies of asteroids. Almost all of those are on the author list, Magri said Wednesday, of a recent paper published in a national science magazine detailing the group’s findings.


KW4, as it’s now known, was discovered in 1999 and classified as potentially hazardous. It made an exceptionally close pass to Earth in 2001, but future changes in its orbit may bring it into contact with Earth but not for at least 1,000 years, Magri said.


Congress asked astronomers to search out at least 90 percent of all potentially hazardous asteroids big enough to do serious damage to the earth, Magri said, because it’s virtually certain that one will hit eventually.


The professor and a group of other astronomers are using funding from NASA and the National Science Foundation to create that list.


We know that big things have hit the earth, and we know the day is going to come when it gets hit again, Magri said. If they hit the earth, you get global devastation. It’s a bad day for everyone.


Traditionally, scientists have discussed two possibilities for altering the course of an asteroid that will hit the earth, Magri said. Method number one would be Bruce Willis style. You blow it up, Magri said.


That would be really hard to do on an object like KW4. Made up of two porous amalgamations of rock that orbit each other, both with extremely weak gravitational fields, it would not only be nearly impossible to land an spacecraft on a KW4-like asteroid. It would also be hard to get anything to stay on. Stuff there is just barely attached, he said.


The other method scientists have come up with to alter an asteroid’s course is pushing them away slowly, using rockets. But alpha the biggest piece of KW4 is porous and chunky, scientists think. That would make it harder; it’s like pushing around a gravel pile, Magri said.


Its a good thing scientists are learning about these problems now, Magri said, because finding a solution takes decades, if not more.


By learning more about this object which we can study well, it helps us understand what such objects are like, so we can do something about it when we find one that is going to hit us, he said.