title: Baker Island

text: On February 27, 1869, the British ship "Shaftsbury" under Captain John Davies, which had arrived at Baker's Island on 5 February from Montevideo, was wrecked after being driven onto the reef by a sudden wind shift and squall from the northwest, dragging her moorings with her. American ship "Robin Hood" was destroyed by fire while loading on 30 August 1869.


title: Baker Island

text: On 7 December 1886, the American Guano Company sold all its rights to the British firm John T. Arundel and Company, which made the island its headquarters for guano digging operations in the Pacific from 1886 to 1891. Arundel applied in 1897 to the British Colonial Office for a licence to work the island on the presumption that the U.S. had abandoned their claim. The United Kingdom then considered Baker Island to be a British territory, although they never formally annexed it. The United States raised the question at the beginning of the 1920s and after some diplomatic exchanges, in 1935 they launched the American Equatorial Islands Colonization Project and in May 1936 issued Executive Order 7358 to clarify their sovereignty.


title: Baker Island

text: This short-lived attempt at colonization, via the American Equatorial Islands Colonization Project, began when American colonists arrived aboard the USCGC "Itasca", the same vessel that brought colonists to neighboring Howland Island, on April 3, 1935. They built a lighthouse and substantial dwellings, and they attempted to grow various plants. The settlement was named Meyerton, after Captain H.A. Meyer of the United States Army, who helped establish the camps in 1935. One sad-looking clump of coconut palms was jokingly called King–Doyle Park after two well-known citizens of Hawaii who visited on the "Taney" in 1938. This clump was the best on the island, planted near a water seep, but the dry climate and seabirds, eager for anything upon which to perch, did not give the trees or shrubs much of a chance to survive. King–Doyle Park was later adopted as a geographic name by the United States Geological Survey. According to the 1940 U.S. Census, its population was three American civilians, all of whom were evacuated in 1942 after Japanese air and naval attacks. During World War II it was occupied by the U.S. military.


title: Baker Island

text: On August 11, 1943, a US Army defense force arrived on Baker Island as part of the Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaign. In September 1943 a airfield was opened and was subsequently used as a staging base by Seventh Air Force B-24 Liberator bombers for attacks on Mili Atoll. The 45th Fighter Squadron operated P-40 fighters from the airfield from September 1 - November 27, 1943. By January 1, 1944, the airfield was abandoned.


title: Baker Island

text: LORAN radio navigation station Baker was a radio operations base in operation from September 1944 to July 1946. The station unit number was 91 and the radio call sign was NRN-1.


title: Baker Island

text: Baker has no natural fresh water sources. It is treeless, with sparse vegetation consisting of four kinds of grass, prostrate vines and low-growing shrubs. The island, with its surrounding waters, is primarily a nesting, roosting, and foraging habitat for seabirds, waders and marine wildlife. It has been recognised as an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International because it supports breeding colonies of lesser frigatebirds, masked boobies and sooty terns. Several species of migratory, arctic-breeding waders visit the island seasonally, including ruddy turnstones, bar-tailed godwits, sanderlings, Pacific golden plovers and bristle-thighed curlews. Green turtles and hawksbill turtles, both critically endangered, can be found along the reef.


title: Baker Island

text: On June 27, 1974, Secretary of the Interior Rogers Morton created Baker Island National Wildlife Refuge which was expanded in 2009 to add submerged lands within of the island. The refuge now includes of land and of water. Baker, along with six other islands, was administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as part of the Pacific Remote Islands National Wildlife Refuge Complex. In January 2009, that entity was redesignated the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument by President George W. Bush.


title: Baker Island

text: Environmental challenges include abandoned military debris from World War II and illegal fishing offshore. Invasive exotics introduced by human activity, including cockroaches and coconut palms, have also displaced native wildlife. Feral cats, first introduced in 1937, were eradicated in 1965.


title: Baker Island

text: Public entry to the island is only by special use permit from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and it is generally restricted to scientists and educators. Representatives from the agency visit the island on average once every two years, usually coordinating transportation with a NOAA vessel.


title: Baker Island

text: Debris from past human occupation is scattered throughout the island and in offshore waters. Most is from the U.S. military occupation of the island from 1942 to 1946. The most noticeable remnant is the airstrip. It is completely overgrown with vegetation and is unusable. In the northeast section, apparently the main camp area, are the remains of several buildings and heavy equipment. Five wooden antenna poles about in height remain standing in the camp. Debris from several crashed airplanes and large equipment such as bulldozers are scattered around the island. Numerous bulldozer excavations containing the remnants of metal, fuel and water drums are scattered about the north central portion and northern edge of the island. The Navy reported the loss of 11 landing craft in the surf during World War II.


title: Ball Arena

text: Ball Arena (formerly known as Pepsi Center) is a multi-purpose indoor arena located in Denver, Colorado. It is situated at Speer Boulevard, a main thoroughfare in downtown Denver, and is served by two nearby exits off Interstate 25. A light rail station is on the western side of the complex. Opened in 1999, it is the home arena of the Denver Nuggets of the National Basketball Association (NBA), the Colorado Avalanche of the National Hockey League (NHL), and the Colorado Mammoth of the National Lacrosse League (NLL).


title: Ball Arena

text: The arena replaced McNichols Sports Arena as the home of the Avalanche and Nuggets. Groundbreaking for the arena was held on November 20, 1997, on the site. Its completion in October 1999 was marked by a Celine Dion concert. Also included in the complex are a basketball practice facility used by the Nuggets, and the Breckenridge Brewery Mountain House"", a restaurant accessible from within and outside the Center itself. The atrium of the building houses a suspended sculpture depicting various hockey and basketball athletes in action poses.


title: Ball Arena

text: Prior to the 2013–14 season, the octagonal scoreboard that was in use since the arena's opening was replaced with a new four-sided rectangular scoreboard. The two center faces measure long, while the two end faces measure wide.


title: Ball Arena

text: From its opening through 2020, the naming rights to the arena were held by PepsiCo, under which it was known as Pepsi Center. On October 22, 2020, the naming rights were sold to Westminster-based Ball Corporation as part of a global multi-year agreement with Kroenke Sports & Entertainment (KSE), which also makes it the exclusive "sustainability partner" of the arena. As part of the agreement, all KSE-owned sports teams and venues will employ recyclable aluminum products provided by Ball to reduce plastic waste, with Ball Arena to transition to serving concessions in aluminum packaging by 2022.


title: Ball Arena

text: The arena hosted the 2001 NHL All-Star Game, plus two Stanley Cup Finals series in 2001 and 2022. The Avalanche won both times, the first at home and the second in Tampa. In 2007, the west regionals of the NCAA Division I hockey tournament were held at the arena, hosted by the University of Denver. The following year, it hosted the Frozen Four round of the 2008 tournament.


title: Ball Arena

text: Pepsi Center hosted the 2005 NBA All-Star Game. The arena has hosted games of the NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament in 2004, 2008, 2011, and 2016. In 2012, the NCAA Women's Final Four was played at the arena, hosted by the Mountain West Conference.


title: Ball Arena

text: UFC held its first event at the arena, UFC 135, on September 24, 2011. It also hosted UFC 150 the following August.


title: Ball Arena

text: On May 18, 2009, WWE cancelled and moved three events it had scheduled in Colorado, including a "WWE Raw" taping on May 25, 2009 at Pepsi Center, after the Denver Nuggets were scheduled to play Game 4 of the NBA Western Conference finals against the Los Angeles Lakers on the same date. The affected events were all moved to the Lakers' home arena of Staples Center, while WWE rescheduled an August 7 taping of "Raw" for Pepsi Center.


title: Ball Arena

text: In an appearance on KUSA, WWE chairman Vince McMahon accused the "inept management" of team and arena owner Stan Kroenke as having led to the conflict. A KSE spokesperson stated that "despite the propaganda campaign launched by WWE and Chairman Vince McMahon, the KSE team maintained a professional manner throughout this process. We had hoped for, and worked hard toward an amicable resolution - which we verbally had on Tuesday."


title: Ball Arena

text: The conflict would be referenced during the ensuing May 25 "Raw", which opened with a skit between impersonators of Kroenke and Lakers owner Jerry Buss. "Kroenke" boasted about the Nuggets and his indifference to WWE and its fans. Mr. McMahon subsequently entered the ring, jokingly proposed the formation of his own basketball league, the XBA (a reference to his ill-fated XFL), and shoved "Kroenke" down — threatening that people who "push" WWE's fans would get "pushed back". In the main event, a 5-on-5 tag team match was held, where a face team wearing Lakers jerseys (John Cena, Batista, Jerry Lawler, MVP, and Mr. Kennedy) defeated a heel team wearing Nuggets jerseys (Randy Orton, The Miz, Cody Rhodes, Ted DiBiase, and Big Show).


title: Ball Arena

text: During the week of July 2–8, 2007, the arena hosted the International Convention and Contests of the Barbershop Harmony Society, a men's singing organization.


title: Ball Arena

text: After a short-lived race at the Denver Civic Center in the early 1990s, the Champ Car World Series ran an annual street circuit race around Pepsi Center, the Grand Prix of Denver. The race was discontinued after the 2006 event.


title: Ball Arena

text: The majority of the 2008 Democratic National Convention was held at the arena, culminating with the official nomination of then-Senator Barack Obama as the Democratic Party's candidate for the 2008 presidential election. However, the closing night of the convention, including Obama's acceptance speech, was instead held at Invesco Field at Mile High.


title: Bun E. Carlos

text: Brad M. Carlson, better known by the stage name Bun E. Carlos, is the original drummer for American rock band Cheap Trick. He recorded and performed with the band from 1973 to 2010. Carlos was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2016 as a member of Cheap Trick.


title: Bun E. Carlos

text: Carlson was born in Rockford, Illinois, on June 12. The year of his birth is reportedly 1950, 1951, or 1953. His parents were Edwin and Violet ( Nelles) Carlson. Carlson was the third of six children. He has two older siblings (Kurt and Jan) and three younger ones (Mark, Gini, and Edwin). Carlson's elder brother, Kurt, was a major in the United States Army Reserve when, on June 14, 1985, TWA Flight 847 was hijacked by terrorists belonging to Hezbollah. He was brutally beaten, nearly to death and was held for 17 days aboard the aircraft in Beirut, Lebanon.


title: Bun E. Carlos

text: Carlson attended Lincoln Junior High School and graduated from Guilford High School, where fellow students included Nielsen and Tom Petersson. Carlson's friendship with Rick Nielsen began in 1963. Carlson and Nielsen met after Carlson's sister, Jan, came home from school one day and said Nielsen was throwing rocks at her. Carlson played football in the fall of 1966 in his sophomore year. He quit the team because he preferred to play music (and be paid for it) than sit on the bench for an entire game.


title: Bun E. Carlos

text: Carlson came from a family with extensive musical interests. Carlson family oral history says that Carlson's great-grandfather was a drummer in the Union Army during the American Civil War. Carlson's father played the accordion, his mother played keyboards and several other instruments, and his brother Kurt was a drummer in the Guilford High School band,


title: Bun E. Carlos

text: Carlson did not start paying attention to music until about 1962 or 1963, when songs like "The Twist", "Return to Sender", and "Sugar Shack" became chart toppers. He initially taught himself to play piano, but when The Beatles' first single, "I Want to Hold Your Hand", received radio airplay in the United States, Carlson became a fan and decided to switch to drums. His mother gave him a Sonor drum kit for his 14th birthday. He began taking formal lessons, but was frustrated by having to constantly change the sticking instructions because he was left-handed. Carlson gave up formal lessons and instead taught himself to play the drums by playing along with songs on the radio or jukebox. He was particularly impressed by the drumming of Ginger Baker, co-founder of the British rock band Cream.


title: Bun E. Carlos

text: From 1966 to 1968, Carlson played in a band called The Pagans with several other high school friends. The band released a single: the A-side was a cover of The Beatles' 1966 hit "Good Day Sunshine", and B-side a cover of Them "I Can Only Give You Everything." The single received local radio airplay on WCFL in Chicago and WROK in Rockford and the band sold about 1,500 copies at local record stores, making The Pagans hometown celebrities. The Pagans broke up, and Carlson played in another local band, Probe and the Lost Souls (which later changed its name to Albatross), in 1969.


title: Bun E. Carlos

text: Carlson enrolled at Rock Valley Junior College in 1969 to obtain an exemption to the draft. He and Robin Zander, the future lead singer of Cheap Trick, were members of the same band for a brief period at this time. Carlson also briefly toured in backup bands for Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, and The Shirelles.


title: Bun E. Carlos

text: Meanwhile, Rick Nielsen and Tom Petersson formed a band in 1969 and called it Fuse. Carlson dropped out of college and in 1971 moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with Nielsen and Petersson. Fuse changed its name to Sick Man of Europe. In 1970, Carlson became the band's drummer, and had changed his stage name to Bun E. Carlos. Carlson toured Germany with the band, with Nielsen taking on the bassist's duties.


title: Bun E. Carlos

text: In about May 1973, the members of Sick Man of Europe relocated to Rockford and the band broke up. In June 1973, Carlos and Nielsen formed a new band to take over the gigs which Sick Man of Europe had booked. Randy "Xeno" Hogan was hired as lead vocalist and Rick Szeluga as bassist. The band continued to use the name Sick Man of Europe, but nightclub owners did not like the name. For about a month, the band used the name The Reapers. In early August 1973, the group adopted the name Cheap Trick. Tom Petersson, then living in Europe, returned to the United States and joined Cheap Trick in November 1973.


title: Bun E. Carlos

text: Cheap Trick was being booked regularly at clubs in the Midwest for $100 a night ($ in dollars) and was getting some repeat bookings. In late 1973 or early 1974, Carlos cut his hair short and began sporting a "bandit" mustache. He visited a thrift store and purchased several comfortable suits and about 20 white cotton dress shirts. The new wardrobe was inexpensive, looked good, and was comfortable.


title: Bun E. Carlos

text: Interpersonal problems began to affect the band, as Hogan and Petersson did not get along. In the summer of 1974, Hogan left Cheap Trick to join The Litter, a Minneapolis-based band. A few days later, Carlos and Nielsen asked Zander to sing for Cheap Trick. Zander was able to get out of the last year of his contract and joined Cheap Trick in October 1974.


title: Bun E. Carlos

text: In 1973 or 1974, Carlos gained a major insight into his drumming. He told interviewer Robin Tolleson in 1986 that, like most young drummers, he was mostly interested in making his drumming stand out ("Where can I get the most licks in, and how cool can I sound"). While listening to a tape of a Cheap Trick concert, he realized he was rushing the beat and interfering in the performance of the other band members. Afterward, he began taping every Cheap Trick show to study his own drumming much more objectively, focusing on keeping time and supporting his bandmates. The band also played several gigs alongside Mahavishnu Orchestra about this time. Carlos says he learned a great deal about ambidextrous drumming from drummer Billy Cobham.


title: Bun E. Carlos

text: In 1976, Carlos tripped over equipment on stage and broke his arm. The band auditioned several drummers to temporarily replace Carlos until his arm healed. None proved capable of keeping up with Cheap Trick's frenetic, high-energy style. The band finally turned to Hank Ransome, drummer with the defunct psychedelic rock/progressive rock Elizabeth. Carlos played alongside Ransome for several shows in case Ransome tired during a performance. Cheap Trick signed a five-year contract with Epic on August 1, 1976. Cheap Trick played a last concert at the Second Chance club in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in October 1976, then headed for New York City to record an album.


title: Bun E. Carlos

text: The band began work on its debut album at the Record Plant recording studio in New York City in November 1976. The record, entitled "Cheap Trick" (1977), failed to chart. The album's liner notes and Epic's promotional advertising made the tongue-in-cheek claims that "Bunezuela E. Carlos" was from Venezuela, his parents helped build the Panama Canal, and that he abandoned his family to come play rock music in America.


title: Bun E. Carlos

text: The band's second album, "In Color", was released later in 1977. When Cheap Trick toured in Japan for the first time in April 1978, they were received with a frenzy reminiscent of Beatlemania. During the tour, Cheap Trick recorded two concerts at the Nippon Budokan. Ten tracks taken from both shows were compiled and released as a live album entitled "Cheap Trick at Budokan", which was intended to be exclusive to Japan.


title: Bun E. Carlos

text: Demand for "Cheap Trick at Budokan" became so great that Epic Records finally released the album in the U.S. in February 1979. "Cheap Trick at Budokan" launched the band into international stardom, and the album went triple platinum in the United States. The first single from the album was the live version of "I Want You to Want Me", which had originally been released on "In Color". It reached No. 7 on the "Billboard" Hot 100, and became Cheap Trick's best-selling single to date.


title: Bun E. Carlos

text: Following a decline in popularity in the early-to-mid-1980s, Cheap Trick released "Lap of Luxury" in 1988. "The Flame", a ballad, was issued as the first single from the album and became the band's first-ever No. 1 hit. The second single, a cover of Elvis Presley's "Don't Be Cruel", peaked at no. 4. "Lap of Luxury" went platinum and became recognized as the band's comeback album.


title: Bun E. Carlos

text: "Busted" was released in 1990. The album's first single, "Can't Stop Falling Into Love", reached on the "Billboard" Hot 100.


title: Bun E. Carlos

text: Carlos suffered from back problems for several years. He had surgery in 2004, which he said fixed the problem.


title: Bun E. Carlos

text: In 2007, officials of Rockford, Illinois, honored Cheap Trick by reproducing the "Rockford" album cover art on that year's city vehicle sticker. On June 19, 2007, the Illinois Senate passed Senate Resolution 255, which designated April 1 of every year as Cheap Trick Day in the State of Illinois.


title: Bun E. Carlos

text: According to Carlos, he and Zander had a falling-out shortly before the band made its appearance on the television program "Austin City Limits". The dispute centered on the number of appearances the band would make at the Paris Las Vegas hotel and casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. On March 19, 2010, Cheap Trick issued a statement that Carlos had stopped recording and touring with Cheap Trick and that he left the band. He was replaced by Rick Nielsen's son, Daxx, who was named the band's touring drummer.


title: Bun E. Carlos

text: In 2012, the band stopped contacting Carlos about business decisions and stopped making payments. He filed suit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois seeking at least $600,000 ($ in dollars) in back income and damages as well as restoration of his decision-making input and voting rights.


title: Bun E. Carlos

text: In April 2014, Nielsen, Petersson, and Zander filed a motion to dismiss Carlos's case; the motion was denied. On February 26, 2015, Zander announced that the lawsuit had been settled. "Bun E.'s a member of the band but he's not touring. We've had our differences but we're all settled up now and hopefully we can forget about that era. These decisions that Cheap Trick makes, Bun E. is part of." Carlos told Andy Greene of "Rolling Stone" that the settlement resolved issues with monetary payments, business participation, and voting rights. The lawsuit ended his personal relationship with Nielsen, Petersson, and Zander, however. He told Green, "[A]ny friendship we had went away when I had to file a federal lawsuit. ... Going after these guys wasn't pleasant. The friendship sort of frittered away there."


title: Bun E. Carlos

text: Since the band's beginning, Carlos maintained the set lists for every Cheap Trick concert. He also made or assisted in making recordings of all the band's concerts, and remained the band's archivist and setlister after the lawsuit. Between 2000 and 2002, Carlos released four volumes of "Bun E.'s Basement Bootlegs". These live recordings of concerts, sound checks, covers, and acoustic and semi-acoustic versions of Cheap Trick songs were released via the band's web site. There were just 1,000 pressings of each release, issued in "bootleg" packing (e.g., simple white cardboard sleeve, little information about each song).


title: Bun E. Carlos

text: Carlos appeared with Cheap Trick on April 4, 2016, when the band was inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Nielsen was reportedly excited to play alongside his original bandmate, saying, "they are inducting the people who made the records way back when and that's good. He deserves it." The Hall of Fame live setlist included: "I Want You To Want Me", "Dream Police", and "Surrender". In his induction speech, Carlos thanked his family, his bandmates, CBS Records, his drum techs, his managers, and producers Tom Werman and Sir George Martin.


title: Bun E. Carlos

text: Carlos is a long-time member of the group First Airborne Rock 'n' Roll Division. The group includes members of The Doobie Brothers, Kansas, Little River Band, Pablo Cruise, and Toto. First Airborne performs at USO-sponsored concerts at U.S. armed forces bases overseas.


title: Bun E. Carlos

text: In 2009, Carlos, together with Hanson singer Taylor Hanson, Smashing Pumpkins guitarist James Iha, and Fountains of Wayne bassist Adam Schlesinger, formed a new band, Tinted Windows. This new project ran alongside each of the artists' main bands. Tinted Windows played its first publicized gig at SXSW in Austin, Texas, on March 20, 2009, and appeared on late-night network TV shows. Their album was released on April 21, 2009.


title: Bun E. Carlos

text: On June 24, 2016, Carlos issued his first-ever solo album, "Greetings From Bunezuela!" featuring performances by Hanson, Alex Dezen and Dave Pirner.


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: Asteroid impact avoidance comprises the methods by which near-Earth objects (NEO) on a potential collision course with Earth could be diverted away, preventing destructive impact events. An impact by a sufficiently large asteroid or other NEOs would cause, depending on its impact location, massive tsunamis or multiple firestorms, and an impact winter caused by the sunlight-blocking effect of large quantities of pulverized rock dust and other debris placed into the stratosphere. A collision 66 million years ago between the Earth and an object approximately wide is thought to have produced the Chicxulub crater and triggered the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event that is understood by the scientific community to have caused the extinction of all non-avian dinosaurs.


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: While the chances of a major collision are low in the near term, it is a near-certainty that one will happen eventually unless defensive measures are taken. Astronomical events—such as the Shoemaker-Levy 9 impacts on Jupiter and the 2013 Chelyabinsk meteor, along with the growing number of near-Earth objects discovered and catalogued on the Sentry Risk Table—have drawn renewed attention to such threats. The popularity of the 2021 movie "Don't Look Up" helped to raise awareness of the possibility of avoiding NEOs.


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: In 2016, a NASA scientist warned that the Earth is unprepared for such an event. In April 2018, the B612 Foundation reported "It's 100 percent certain we'll be hit by a devastating asteroid, but we're not 100 percent sure when." Also in 2018, physicist Stephen Hawking, in his final book, "Brief Answers to the Big Questions", considered an asteroid collision to be the biggest threat to the planet. Several ways of avoiding an asteroid impact have been described. Nonetheless, in March 2019, scientists reported that asteroids may be much more difficult to destroy than thought earlier. In addition, an asteroid may reassemble itself due to gravity after being disrupted. In May 2021, NASA astronomers reported that 5 to 10 years of preparation may be needed to avoid a virtual impactor based on a simulated exercise conducted by the 2021 Planetary Defense Conference.


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: In 2022, NASA spacecraft DART impacted Dimorphos, reducing the minor-planet moon's orbital period by 32 minutes. This mission constitues the first successful attempt at asteroid deflection.


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: According to expert testimony in the United States Congress in 2013, NASA would require at least five years of preparation before a mission to intercept an asteroid could be launched. In June 2018, the US National Science and Technology Council warned that the United States was unprepared for an asteroid impact event, and developed and released the "National Near-Earth Object Preparedness Strategy Action Plan" to better prepare.


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: Most deflection efforts for a large object require from a year to decades of warning, allowing time to prepare and carry out a collision avoidance project, as no known planetary defense hardware has yet been developed. It has been estimated that a velocity change of just (where t is the number of years until potential impact) is needed to successfully deflect a body on a direct collision trajectory. In addition, under certain circumstances, much smaller velocity changes are needed. For example, it was estimated there was a high chance of 99942 Apophis swinging by Earth in 2029 with a 10 probability of returning on an impact trajectory in 2035 or 2036. It was then determined that a deflection from this potential return trajectory, several years before the swing-by, could be achieved with a velocity change on the order of 10 m·s.


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), the world’s first full-scale mission to test technology for defending Earth against potential asteroid or comet hazards, launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: An impact by a asteroid on the Earth has historically caused an extinction-level event due to catastrophic damage to the biosphere. There is also the threat from comets entering the inner Solar System. The impact speed of a long-period comet would likely be several times greater than that of a near-Earth asteroid, making its impact much more destructive; in addition, the warning time is unlikely to be more than a few months. Impacts from objects as small as in diameter, which are far more common, are historically extremely destructive regionally (see Barringer crater).


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: Finding out the material composition of the object is also helpful before deciding which strategy is appropriate. Missions like the 2005 "Deep Impact" probe and the Rosetta spacecraft, have provided valuable information on what to expect. In October 2022, a method of mapping the insides of a potentially problematic asteroid in order to determine the best area for impact was proposed.


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: Efforts in asteroid impact prediction have concentrated on the survey method. The 1992 NASA-sponsored Near-Earth-Object Interception Workshop hosted by Los Alamos National Laboratory evaluated issues involved in intercepting celestial objects that could hit Earth. In a 1992 report to NASA, a coordinated Spaceguard Survey was recommended to discover, verify and provide follow-up observations for Earth-crossing asteroids. This survey was expected to discover 90% of these objects larger than one kilometer within 25 years. Three years later, another NASA report recommended search surveys that would discover 60–70% of short-period, near-Earth objects larger than one kilometer within ten years and obtain 90% completeness within five more years.


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: In 1998, NASA formally embraced the goal of finding and cataloging, by 2008, 90% of all near-Earth objects (NEOs) with diameters of 1 km or larger that could represent a collision risk to Earth. The 1 km diameter metric was chosen after considerable study indicated that an impact of an object smaller than 1 km could cause significant local or regional damage but is unlikely to cause a worldwide catastrophe. The impact of an object much larger than 1 km diameter could well result in worldwide damage up to, and potentially including, extinction of the human species. The NASA commitment has resulted in the funding of a number of NEO search efforts, which made considerable progress toward the 90% goal by 2008. However the 2009 discovery of several NEOs approximately 2 to 3 kilometers in diameter (e.g. , , , and ) demonstrated there were still large objects to be detected.


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: United States Representative George E. Brown Jr. (D-CA) was quoted as voicing his support for planetary defense projects in "Air & Space Power Chronicles", saying "If some day in the future we discover well in advance that an asteroid that is big enough to cause a mass extinction is going to hit the Earth, and then we alter the course of that asteroid so that it does not hit us, it will be one of the most important accomplishments in all of human history."


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: Because of Congressman Brown's long-standing commitment to planetary defense, a U.S. House of Representatives' bill, H.R. 1022, was named in his honor: The George E. Brown, Jr. Near-Earth Object Survey Act. This bill "to provide for a Near-Earth Object Survey program to detect, track, catalogue, and characterize certain near-Earth asteroids and comets" was introduced in March 2005 by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA). It was eventually rolled into S.1281, the NASA Authorization Act of 2005, passed by Congress on December 22, 2005, subsequently signed by the President, and stating in part:


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: The result of this directive was a report presented to Congress in early March 2007. This was an Analysis of Alternatives (AoA) study led by NASA's Program Analysis and Evaluation (PA&E) office with support from outside consultants, the Aerospace Corporation, NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC), and SAIC (amongst others).


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: The Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts has been cataloging the orbits of asteroids and comets since 1947. It has recently been joined by surveys that specialize in locating the near-Earth objects (NEO), many (as of early 2007) funded by NASA's Near Earth Object program office as part of their Spaceguard program. One of the best-known is LINEAR that began in 1996. By 2004 LINEAR was discovering tens of thousands of objects each year and accounting for 65% of all new asteroid detections. LINEAR uses two one-meter telescopes and one half-meter telescope based in New Mexico.


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: The Catalina Sky Survey (CSS) is conducted at the Steward Observatory's Catalina Station, located near Tucson, Arizona, in the United States. It uses two telescopes, a 1.5-meter (60-inch) f/2 telescope on the peak of Mount Lemmon, and a 68-cm (27-inch) f/1.7 Schmidt telescope near Mount Bigelow (both in the Tucson, Arizona area). In 2005, CSS became the most prolific NEO survey surpassing Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) in total number of NEOs and potentially hazardous asteroids discovered each year since. CSS discovered 310 NEOs in 2005, 396 in 2006, 466 in 2007, and in 2008 564 NEOs were found.


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: Spacewatch, which uses a 90 centimeter telescope sited at the Kitt Peak Observatory in Arizona, updated with automatic pointing, imaging, and analysis equipment to search the skies for intruders, was set up in 1980 by Tom Gehrels and Robert S. McMillan of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory of the University of Arizona in Tucson, and is now being operated by McMillan. The Spacewatch project has acquired a 1.8 meter telescope, also at Kitt Peak, to hunt for NEOs, and has provided the old 90-centimeter telescope with an improved electronic imaging system with much greater resolution, improving its search capability.


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: Other near-Earth object tracking programs include Near-Earth Asteroid Tracking (NEAT), Lowell Observatory Near-Earth-Object Search (LONEOS), Campo Imperatore Near-Earth Object Survey (CINEOS), Japanese Spaceguard Association, and Asiago-DLR Asteroid Survey. Pan-STARRS completed telescope construction in 2010, and it is now actively observing.


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: The Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System, now in operation, conducts frequent scans of the sky with a view to later-stage detection on the collision stretch of the asteroid orbit. Those would be much too late for deflection, but still in time for evacuation and preparation of the affected Earth region.


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: Another project, supported by the European Union, is NEOShield, which analyses realistic options for preventing the collision of a NEO with Earth. Their aim is to provide test mission designs for feasible NEO mitigation concepts. The project particularly emphasises on two aspects.


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: "Spaceguard" is the name for these loosely affiliated programs, some of which receive NASA funding to meet a U.S. Congressional requirement to detect 90% of near-Earth asteroids over 1 km diameter by 2008. A 2003 NASA study of a follow-on program suggests spending US$250–450 million to detect 90% of all near-Earth asteroids 140 meters and larger by 2028.


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: The B612 Foundation is a private nonprofit foundation with headquarters in the United States, dedicated to protecting the Earth from asteroid strikes. It is led mainly by scientists, former astronauts and engineers from the Institute for Advanced Study, Southwest Research Institute, Stanford University, NASA and the space industry.


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: As a non-governmental organization it has conducted two lines of related research to help detect NEOs that could one day strike the Earth, and find the technological means to divert their path to avoid such collisions. The foundation's goal had been to design and build a privately financed asteroid-finding space telescope, Sentinel, which was to be launched in 2017–2018. However the project was cancelled in 2015. Had the Sentinel's infrared telescope been parked in an orbit similar to that of Venus, it would have helped identify threatening NEOs by cataloging 90% of those with diameters larger than , as well as surveying smaller Solar System objects.


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: Data gathered by Sentinel would have helped identify asteroids and other NEOs that pose a risk of collision with Earth, by being forwarded to scientific data-sharing networks, including NASA and academic institutions such as the Minor Planet Center. The foundation also proposes asteroid deflection of potentially dangerous NEOs by the use of gravity tractors to divert their trajectories away from Earth, a concept co-invented by the organization's CEO, physicist and former NASA astronaut Ed Lu.


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: Orbit@home intends to provide distributed computing resources to optimize search strategy. On February 16, 2013, the project was halted due to lack of grant funding. However, on July 23, 2013, the orbit@home project was selected for funding by NASA's Near Earth Object Observation program and was to resume operations sometime in early 2014. As of July 13, 2018, the project is offline according to its website.


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, currently under construction, is expected to perform a comprehensive, high-resolution survey starting in the early 2020s.


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: On November 8, 2007, the House Committee on Science and Technology's Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics held a hearing to examine the status of NASA's Near-Earth Object survey program. The prospect of using the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer was proposed by NASA officials.


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: WISE surveyed the sky in the infrared band at a very high sensitivity. Asteroids that absorb solar radiation can be observed through the infrared band. It was used to detect NEOs, in addition to performing its science goals. It is projected that WISE could detect 400 NEOs (roughly two percent of the estimated NEO population of interest) within the one-year mission.


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: NEOSSat, the Near Earth Object Surveillance Satellite, is a microsatellite launched in February 2013 by the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) that will hunt for NEOs in space. Furthermore Near-Earth Object WISE (NEOWISE), an extension of the WISE mission, started in September 2013 (in its second mission extension) to hunt asteroids and comets close to the orbit of Earth.


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: Research published in the March 26, 2009 issue of the journal "Nature", describes how scientists were able to identify an asteroid in space before it entered Earth's atmosphere, enabling computers to determine its area of origin in the Solar System as well as predict the arrival time and location on Earth of its shattered surviving parts. The four-meter-diameter asteroid, called 2008 TC, was initially sighted by the automated Catalina Sky Survey telescope, on October 6, 2008. Computations correctly predicted that it would impact 19 hours after discovery and in the Nubian Desert of northern Sudan.


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: A number of potential threats have been identified, such as 99942 Apophis (previously known by its provisional designation ), which in 2004 temporarily had an impact probability of about 3% for the year 2029. Additional observations revised this probability down to zero.


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: On September 26, 2022 "DART" impacted Dimorphos, reducing the minor-planet moon's orbital period by 32 minutes. This mission was the first successful attempt at asteroid deflection.


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: The ellipses in the diagram on the right show the predicted position of an example asteroid at closest Earth approach. At first, with only a few asteroid observations, the error ellipse is very large and includes the Earth. Further observations shrink the error ellipse, but it still includes the Earth. This raises the predicted impact probability, since the Earth now covers a larger fraction of the error region. Finally, yet more observations (often radar observations, or discovery of a previous sighting of the same asteroid on archival images) shrink the ellipse revealing that the Earth is outside the error region, and the impact probability is near zero.


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: For asteroids that are actually on track to hit Earth the predicted probability of impact continues to increase as more observations are made. This similar pattern makes it difficult to differentiate between asteroids that will only come close to Earth and those that will actually hit it. This in turn makes it difficult to decide when to raise an alarm as gaining more certainty takes time, which reduces time available to react to a predicted impact. However, raising the alarm too soon has the danger of causing a false alarm and creating a Boy Who Cried Wolf effect if the asteroid in fact misses Earth.


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: Various collision avoidance techniques have different trade-offs with respect to metrics such as overall performance, cost, failure risks, operations, and technology readiness. There are various methods for changing the course of an asteroid/comet. These can be differentiated by various types of attributes such as the type of mitigation (deflection or fragmentation), energy source (kinetic, electromagnetic, gravitational, solar/thermal, or nuclear), and approach strategy (interception, rendezvous, or remote station).


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: Strategies fall into two basic sets: Fragmentation and delay. Fragmentation concentrates on rendering the impactor harmless by fragmenting it and scattering the fragments so that they miss the Earth or are small enough to burn up in the atmosphere. Delay exploits the fact that both the Earth and the impactor are in orbit. An impact occurs when both reach the same point in space at the same time, or more correctly when some point on Earth's surface intersects the impactor's orbit when the impactor arrives. Since the Earth is approximately 12,750 km in diameter and moves at approx. 30 km per second in its orbit, it travels a distance of one planetary diameter in about 425 seconds, or slightly over seven minutes. Delaying, or advancing the impactor's arrival by times of this magnitude can, depending on the exact geometry of the impact, cause it to miss the Earth.


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: Collision avoidance strategies can also be seen as either direct, or indirect and in how rapidly they transfer energy to the object. The direct methods, such as nuclear explosives, or kinetic impactors, rapidly intercept the bolide's path. Direct methods are preferred because they are generally less costly in time and money. Their effects may be immediate, thus saving precious time. These methods would work for short-notice and long-notice threats, and are most effective against solid objects that can be directly pushed, but in the case of kinetic impactors, they are not very effective against large loosely aggregated rubble piles. Indirect methods, such as gravity tractors, attaching rockets or mass drivers, are much slower. They require traveling to the object, changing course up to 180 degrees for space rendezvous, and then taking much more time to change the asteroid's path just enough so it will miss Earth.


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: Many NEOs are thought to be "flying rubble piles" only loosely held together by gravity, and a typical spacecraft sized kinetic-impactor deflection attempt might just break up the object or fragment it without sufficiently adjusting its course. If an asteroid breaks into fragments, any fragment larger than 35 meters across would not burn up in the atmosphere and itself could impact Earth. Tracking the thousands of buckshot-like fragments that could result from such an explosion would be a very daunting task, although fragmentation would be preferable to doing nothing and allowing the originally larger rubble body, which is analogous to a shot and wax slug, to impact the Earth.


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: In Cielo simulations conducted in 2011–2012, in which the rate and quantity of energy delivery were sufficiently high and matched to the size of the rubble pile, such as following a tailored nuclear explosion, results indicated that any asteroid fragments, created after the pulse of energy is delivered, would not pose a threat of re-coalescing (including for those with the shape of asteroid Itokawa) but instead would rapidly achieve escape velocity from their parent body (which for Itokawa is about 0.2 m/s) and therefore move out of an earth-impact trajectory.


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: Initiating a nuclear explosive device above, on, or slightly beneath, the surface of a threatening celestial body is a potential deflection option, with the optimal detonation height dependent upon the composition and size of the object. It does not require the entire NEO to be vaporized to mitigate an impact threat. In the case of an inbound threat from a "rubble pile," the stand off, or detonation height above the surface configuration, has been put forth as a means to prevent the potential fracturing of the rubble pile. The energetic neutrons and soft X-rays released by the detonation, which do not appreciably penetrate matter, are converted into heat upon encountering the object's surface matter, ablatively vaporizing all line of sight exposed surface areas of the object to a shallow depth, turning the surface material it heats up into ejecta, and, analogous to the ejecta from a chemical rocket engine exhaust, changing the velocity, or "nudging", the object off course by the reaction, following Newton's third law, with ejecta going one way and the object being propelled in the other. Depending on the energy of the explosive device, the resulting rocket exhaust effect, created by the high velocity of the asteroid's vaporized mass ejecta, coupled with the object's small reduction in mass, would produce enough of a change in the object's orbit to make it miss the Earth.


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: If the object is very large but is still a loosely-held-together rubble pile, a solution is to detonate one or a series of nuclear explosive devices alongside the asteroid, at a or greater stand-off height above its surface, so as not to fracture the potentially loosely-held-together object. Providing that this stand-off strategy was done far enough in advance, the force from a sufficient number of nuclear blasts would alter the object's trajectory enough to avoid an impact, according to computer simulations and experimental evidence from meteorites exposed to the thermal X-ray pulses of the Z-machine.


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: In 1967, graduate students under Professor Paul Sandorff at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology were tasked with designing a method to prevent a hypothetical 18-month distant impact on Earth by the asteroid 1566 Icarus, an object that makes regular close approaches to Earth, sometimes as close as 16 lunar distances. To achieve the task within the timeframe and with limited material knowledge of the asteroid's composition, a variable stand-off system was conceived. This would have used a number of modified Saturn V rockets sent on interception courses and the creation of a handful of nuclear explosive devices in the 100-megaton energy range—coincidentally, the same as the maximum yield of the Soviets' "Tsar Bomba" would have been if a uranium tamper had been used—as each rocket vehicle's payload. The design study was later published as Project Icarus which served as the inspiration for the 1979 film "Meteor".


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: In the same year, NASA released a study where the asteroid Apophis (with a diameter of around ) was assumed to have a much lower rubble pile density () and therefore lower mass than it is now known to have, and in the study, it is assumed to be on an impact trajectory with Earth for the year 2029. Under these hypothetical conditions, the report determines that a "Cradle spacecraft" would be sufficient to deflect it from Earth impact. This conceptual spacecraft contains six B83 physics packages, each set for their maximum 1.2-megatonne yield, bundled together and lofted by an Ares V vehicle sometime in the 2020s, with each B83 being fuzed to detonate over the asteroid's surface at a height of ("1/3 of the objects diameter" as its stand-off), one after the other, with hour-long intervals between each detonation. The results of this study indicated that a single employment of this option "can deflect NEOs of [ diameter] two years before impact, and larger NEOs with at least five years warning". These effectiveness figures are considered to be "conservative" by its authors, and only the thermal X-ray output of the B83 devices was considered, while neutron heating was neglected for ease of calculation purposes.


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: In 2011, the director of the Asteroid Deflection Research Center at Iowa State University, Dr. Bong Wie (who had published kinetic impactor deflection studies previously), began to study strategies that could deal with objects when the time to Earth impact was less than one year. He concluded that to provide the required energy, a nuclear explosion or other event that could deliver the same power, are the only methods that can work against a very large asteroid within these time constraints.


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: This work resulted in the creation of a conceptual Hypervelocity Asteroid Intercept Vehicle (HAIV), which combines a kinetic impactor to create an initial crater for a follow-up subsurface nuclear detonation within that initial crater, which would generate a high degree of efficiency in the conversion of the nuclear energy that is released in the detonation into propulsion energy to the asteroid.


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: A similar proposal would use a surface-detonating nuclear device in place of the kinetic impactor to create the initial crater, then using the crater as a rocket nozzle to channel succeeding nuclear detonations.


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: At the 2014 NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) conference, Wie and his colleagues stated that "we have the solution, using our baseline concept, to be able to mitigate the asteroid-impact threat, with any range of warning." For example, according to their computer models, with a warning time of 30 days, a asteroid would be neutralized by using a single HAIV, with less than 0.1% of the destroyed object's mass potentially striking Earth, which by comparison would be more than acceptable.


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: As of 2015, Wie has collaborated with the Danish Emergency Asteroid Defence Project (EADP), which ultimately intends to crowdsource sufficient funds to design, build, and store a non-nuclear HAIV spacecraft as planetary insurance. For threatening asteroids too large and/or too close to Earth impact to effectively be deflected by the non-nuclear HAIV approach, nuclear explosive devices (with 5% of the explosive yield than those used for the stand-off strategy) are intended to be swapped in, under international oversight, when conditions arise that necessitate it.


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: Following the 1994 Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet impacts with Jupiter, Edward Teller proposed, to a collective of U.S. and Russian ex-Cold War weapons designers in a 1995 planetary defense workshop meeting at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), that they collaborate to design a one-gigaton nuclear explosive device, which would be equivalent to the kinetic energy of a asteroid. The theoretical one-gigaton device would weigh about 25–30 tons, light enough to be lifted on the Energia rocket. It could be used to instantaneously vaporize a asteroid, divert the paths of ELE-class asteroids (greater than in diameter) within short notice of a few months. With one year of notice, and at an interception location no closer than Jupiter, it could also deal with the even rarer short period comets that can come out of the Kuiper belt and transit past Earth orbit within two years. For comets of this class, with a maximum estimated diameter of , Chiron served as the hypothetical threat.


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: In 2013, the related National Laboratories of the US and Russia signed a deal that includes an intent to cooperate on defense from asteroids.


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: An April 2014 GAO report notes that the NNSA is retaining canned subassemblies (CSAs—nuclear secondary stages) in an indeterminate state pending a senior-level government evaluation of their use in planetary defense against earthbound asteroids." In its FY2015 budget request, the NNSA noted that the nine-megaton B53 component disassembly was "delayed", leading some observers to conclude they might be the warhead CSAs being retained for potential planetary defense purposes.


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: The impact of a massive object, such as a spacecraft or even another near-Earth object, is another possible solution to a pending NEO impact. An object with a high mass close to the Earth could be sent out into a collision course with the asteroid, knocking it off course.


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: When the asteroid is still far from the Earth, a means of deflecting the asteroid is to directly alter its momentum by colliding a spacecraft with the asteroid.


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: This deviation method, which has been implemented by DART and, for a completely different purpose (analysis of the structure and composition of a comet), by NASA's Deep Impact space probe, involves launching a spacecraft against the near Earth object. The speed of the asteroid is modified due to the law of conservation of momentum:


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: with V velocity of the spacecraft, V velocity of the celestial body before impact, and V the velocity after impact. M and M respective mass of the spacecraft and of the celestial body. Velocities are vectors here.


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: The European Union's NEOShield-2 Mission is also primarily studying the Kinetic Impactor mitigation method. The principle of the kinetic impactor mitigation method is that the NEO or Asteroid is deflected following an impact from an impactor spacecraft. The principle of momentum transfer is used, as the impactor crashes into the NEO at a very high velocity of or more. The momentum of the impactor is transferred to the NEO, causing a change in velocity and therefore making it deviate from its course slightly.


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: As of mid-2021, the modified AIDA mission has been approved. The NASA Double Asteroid Redirection Test ("DART") kinetic impactor spacecraft was launched in November 2021. The goal was to impact Dimorphos (nicknamed "Didymoon"), the minor-planet moon of near-Earth asteroid 65803 Didymos. The impact occurred in September 2022 when Didymos is relatively close to Earth, allowing Earth-based telescopes and planetary radar to observe the event. The result of the impact will be to change the orbital velocity and hence orbital period of Dimorphos, by a large enough amount that it can be measured from Earth. This will show for the first time that it is possible to change the orbit of a small asteroid, around the size most likely to require active mitigation in the future. The second part of the AIDA missionthe ESA HERA spacecrafthas been approved by ESA member states in October 2019. It would reach the Didymos system in 2026 and measure both the mass of Dimorphos and the precise effect of the impact on that body, allowing much better extrapolation of the AIDA mission to other targets.


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: Another alternative to explosive deflection is to move the asteroid slowly over time. A small but constant amount of thrust accumulates to deviate an object sufficiently from its course. Edward T. Lu and Stanley G. Love have proposed using a massive unmanned spacecraft hovering over an asteroid to gravitationally pull the asteroid into a non-threatening orbit. Though both objects are gravitationally pulled towards each other, the spacecraft can counter the force towards the asteroid by, for example, an ion thruster, so the net effect would be that the asteroid is accelerated towards the spacecraft and thus slightly deflected from its orbit. While slow, this method has the advantage of working irrespective of the asteroid's composition or spin rate; rubble pile asteroids would be difficult to deflect by means of nuclear detonations, while a pushing device would be difficult or inefficient to mount on a fast-rotating asteroid. A gravity tractor would likely have to spend several years beside the asteroid to be effective.


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: Another "contactless" asteroid deflection technique has been proposed by C. Bombardelli and J. Peláez from the Technical University of Madrid. The method involves the use of a low-divergence ion thruster pointed at the asteroid from a nearby hovering spacecraft. The momentum transmitted by the ions reaching the asteroid surface produces a slow but continuous force that can deflect the asteroid in a similar way as the gravity tractor, but with a lighter spacecraft.


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: H. J. Melosh with I. V. Nemchinov proposed deflecting an asteroid or comet by focusing solar energy onto its surface to create thrust from the resulting vaporization of material. This method would first require the construction of a space station with a system of large collecting, concave mirrors similar to those used in solar furnaces.


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: Orbit mitigation with highly concentrated sunlight is scalable to achieving the predetermined deflection within a year even for a global-threatening body without prolonged warning time.


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: Such a hastened strategy may become topical in the case of late detection of a potential hazard, and also, if required, in providing the possibility for some additional action. Conventional concave reflectors are practically inapplicable to the high-concentrating geometry in the case of a giant shadowing space target, which is located in front of the mirrored surface. This is primarily because of the dramatic spread of the mirrors' focal points on the target due to the optical aberration when the optical axis is not aligned with the Sun. On the other hand, the positioning of any collector at a distance to the target much larger than its size does not yield the required concentration level (and therefore temperature) due to the natural divergence of the sunrays. Such principal restrictions are inevitably at any location regarding the asteroid of one or many unshaded forward-reflecting collectors. Also, in the case of secondary mirrors use, similar to the ones found in Cassegrain telescopes, would be prone to heat damage by partially concentrated sunlight from primary mirror.


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: In order to remove the above restrictions, V.P. Vasylyev proposed to apply an alternative design of a mirrored collector – the ring-array concentrator. This type of collector has an underside lens-like position of its focal area that avoids shadowing of the collector by the target and minimizes the risk of its coating by ejected debris. Provided the sunlight concentration ~ 5 × 10 times, a surface irradiance of around 4-5 MW/m leads to a thrusting effect ~ 10 N. Intensive ablation of the rotating asteroid surface under the focal spot will lead to the appearance of a deep "canyon", which can contribute to the formation of the escaping gas flow into a jet-like one. This may be sufficient to deflect a 0.5-km asteroid within several months and no addition warning period, only using ring-array collector size ~ 0.5 of asteroid diameter. For such a prompt deflection of the larger NEOs, 1.3-2.2 km, the required collector sizes are comparable to the target diameter. In the case of a longer warning time, the required size of the collector may be significantly decreased.


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: A mass driver is an (automated) system on the asteroid to eject material into space, thus giving the object a slow steady push and decreasing its mass. A mass driver is designed to work as a very low specific impulse system, which in general uses a lot of propellant, but very little power.


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: The idea is that when using local material as propellant, the amount of propellant is not as important as the amount of power, which is likely to be limited.


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: Attaching any spacecraft propulsion device would have a similar effect of giving a push, possibly forcing the asteroid onto a trajectory that takes it away from Earth. An in-space rocket engine that is capable of imparting an impulse of 10 N·s (E.g. adding 1 km/s to a 1000 kg vehicle), will have a relatively small effect on a relatively small asteroid that has a mass of roughly a million times more. Chapman, Durda, and Gold's white paper calculates deflections using existing chemical rockets delivered to the asteroid.


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: Such direct force rocket engines are typically proposed to use highly-efficient electrically powered spacecraft propulsion, such as ion thrusters or VASIMR.


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: Similar to the effects of a nuclear device, it is thought possible to focus sufficient laser energy on the surface of an asteroid to cause flash vaporization / ablation to create either in impulse or to ablate away the asteroid mass. This concept, called asteroid laser ablation was articulated in the 1995 SpaceCast 2020 white paper "Preparing for Planetary Defense", and the 1996 Air Force 2025 white paper "Planetary Defense: Catastrophic Health Insurance for Planet Earth". Early publications include C. R. Phipps "ORION" concept from 1996, Colonel Jonathan W. Campbell's 2000 monograph "Using Lasers in Space: Laser Orbital Debris Removal and Asteroid Deflection", and NASA's 2005 concept Comet Asteroid Protection System (CAPS). Typically such systems require a significant amount of power, such as would be available from a Space-Based Solar Power Satellite.


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: Carl Sagan, in his book "Pale Blue Dot", expressed concern about deflection technology, noting that any method capable of deflecting impactors "away" from Earth could also be abused to divert non-threatening bodies "toward" the planet. Considering the history of genocidal political leaders and the possibility of the bureaucratic obscuring of any such project's true goals to most of its scientific participants, he judged the Earth at greater risk from a man-made impact than a natural one. Sagan instead suggested that deflection technology be developed only in an actual emergency situation.


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: All low-energy delivery deflection technologies have inherent fine control and steering capability, making it possible to add just the right amount of energy to steer an asteroid originally destined for a mere close approach toward a specific Earth target.


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: According to former NASA astronaut Rusty Schweickart, the gravitational tractor method is controversial because, during the process of changing an asteroid's trajectory, the point on the Earth where it could most likely hit would be slowly shifted across different countries. Thus, the threat for the entire planet would be minimized at the cost of some specific states' security. In Schweickart's opinion, choosing the way the asteroid should be "dragged" would be a tough diplomatic decision.


title: Asteroid impact avoidance

text: Analysis of the uncertainty involved in nuclear deflection shows that the ability to protect the planet does not imply the ability to target the planet. A nuclear explosion that changes an asteroid's velocity by 10 meters/second (plus or minus 20%) would be adequate to push it out of an Earth-impacting orbit. However, if the uncertainty of the velocity change was more than a few percent, there would be no chance of directing the asteroid to a particular target.


title: Allan Octavian Hume

text: Allan Octavian Hume, CB ICS (4 June 1829 – 31 July 1912) was a British civil servant, political reformer, ornithologist and botanist who worked in British India. He was the founder of the Indian National Congress. A notable ornithologist, Hume has been called "the Father of Indian Ornithology" and, by those who found him dogmatic, "the Pope of Indian Ornithology".


title: Allan Octavian Hume

text: As an administrator of Etawah, he saw the Indian Rebellion of 1857 as a result of misgovernance and made great efforts to improve the lives of the common people. The district of Etawah was among the first to be returned to normalcy and over the next few years Hume's reforms led to the district being considered a model of development. Hume rose in the ranks of the Indian Civil Service but like his father Joseph Hume, a radical member of parliament, he was bold and outspoken in questioning British policies in India. He rose in 1871 to the position of secretary to the Department of Revenue, Agriculture, and Commerce under Lord Mayo. His criticism of Lord Lytton led to his removal from the Secretariat in 1879.


title: Allan Octavian Hume

text: He founded the journal "Stray Feathers" in which he and his subscribers recorded notes on birds from across India. He built up a vast collection of bird specimens at his home in Shimla by making collection expeditions and obtaining specimens through his network of correspondents.


title: Allan Octavian Hume

text: Following the loss of manuscripts that he had long been maintaining in the hope of producing a magnum opus on the birds of India, he abandoned ornithology and gifted his collection to the Natural History Museum in London, where it continues to be the single largest collection of Indian bird skins. He was briefly a follower of the theosophical movement founded by Madame Blavatsky. He left India in 1894 to live in London from where he continued to take an interest in the Indian National Congress. He also took an interest in botany and founded the South London Botanical Institute towards the end of his life.


title: Allan Octavian Hume

text: Hume was born in Westminster, London and baptized at St Mary's, Bryanston Square, a younger son (and the eighth child in a family of nine) of Joseph Hume, the Radical Scottish member of parliament, by his marriage to Maria Burnley. Until the age of eleven he was privately tutored growing up at the town house at 6 Bryanston Square in London and at their country estate, Burnley Hall in Norfolk. He was educated at University College Hospital, where he studied medicine and surgery and was then nominated to the Indian Civil Services which led him to study at the East India Company College, Haileybury. Early influences included his friend John Stuart Mill and Herbert Spencer. He briefly served as a junior midshipman aboard a navy vessel in the Mediterranean in 1842.


title: Allan Octavian Hume

text: Hume sailed to India in 1849 and on reaching Calcutta, he stayed with his cousin James Hume, The following year, he joined the Bengal Civil Service at Etawah in the North-Western Provinces, in what is now Uttar Pradesh. His career in India included service as a district officer from 1849 to 1867, head of a central department from 1867 to 1870, and secretary to the Government from 1870 to 1879. He married Mary Anne Grindall (26 May 1824, Meerut – 30 March 1890, Simla) in 1853.


title: Allan Octavian Hume

text: It was only nine years after his entry to India that Hume faced the Indian Rebellion of 1857 during which time he was involved in several military actions for which he was created a Companion of the Bath in 1860. Initially it appeared that he was safe in Etawah, not far from Meerut where the rebellion began but this changed and Hume had to take refuge in Agra fort for six months. Nonetheless, all but one Indian official remained loyal and Hume resumed his position in Etawah in January 1858. He built up an irregular force of 650 loyal Indian troops and took part in engagements with them. Hume blamed British ineptitude for the uprising and pursued a policy of "mercy and forbearance" when dealing with the captured rebels. Only seven persons were executed at the gallows on his orders. The district of Etawah was restored to peace and order in a year, something that was not possible in most other parts.


title: Allan Octavian Hume

text: Shortly after 1857, he set about in a range of reforms. As a District Officer in the Indian Civil Service, he began introducing free primary education and held public meetings for their support. He made changes in the functioning of the police department and the separation of the judicial role. Noting that there was very little reading material with educational content, he started, along with Koour Lutchman Singh, a Hindi language periodical, "Lokmitra" ("The People's Friend") in 1859. Originally meant only for Etawah, its fame spread. Hume also organized and managed an Urdu journal "Muhib-i-riaya".


title: Allan Octavian Hume

text: He took up the cause of education and founded scholarships for higher education. He wrote, in 1859, that education played a key role in avoiding revolts like the one in 1857:


title: Allan Octavian Hume

text: "… assert its supremacy as it may at the bayonet's point, a free and civilized government must look for its stability and permanence to the enlightenment of the people and their moral and intellectual capacity to appreciate its blessings."


title: Allan Octavian Hume

text: In 1863 he moved for separate schools for juvenile delinquents rather than flogging and imprisonment which he saw as producing hardened criminals. His efforts led to a juvenile reformatory not far from Etawah. He also started free schools in Etawah and by 1857 he established 181 schools with 5186 students including two girls. The high school that he helped build with his own money is still in operation, now as a junior college, and it was said to have a floor plan resembling the letter "H". This, according to some was an indication of Hume's imperial ego. Hume found the idea of earning revenue earned through liquor traffic repulsive and described it as "The wages of sin". With his progressive ideas on social reform, he advocated women's education, was against infanticide and enforced widowhood. Hume laid out in Etawah, a neatly gridded commercial district that is now known as Humeganj but often pronounced "Homeganj".


title: Allan Octavian Hume

text: In 1867 Hume became Commissioner of Customs for the North West Province, and in 1870 he became attached to the central government as Director-General of Agriculture. In 1879 he returned to provincial government at Allahabad. His work on reducing the burden involved in the maintenance of the customs department controlling the movement of salt, which included the 2500 mile-long Inland Customs Line, the so-called great hedge, led to his promotion by Lord Mayo who rewarded him with Secretaryship and was moved in 1871 to the Department of Revenue and Agriculture.


title: Allan Octavian Hume

text: Hume was very interested in the development of agriculture. He believed that there was too much focus on obtaining revenue and no effort had been spent on improving the efficiency of agriculture. He found an ally in Lord Mayo who supported the idea of developing a complete department of agriculture. Hume noted in his "Agricultural reform in India" that Lord Mayo had been the only Viceroy who had any experience of working in the fields.


title: Allan Octavian Hume

text: Hume made a number of suggestions for the improvement of agriculture placing carefully gathered evidence for his ideas. He noted the poor yields of wheat, comparing them with estimates from the records of Emperor Akbar and yields of farms in Norfolk. Lord Mayo supported his ideas but was unable to establish a dedicated agricultural bureau as the scheme did not find support from the Secretary of State for India, but they negotiated the setting up of a "Department of Revenue, Agriculture and Commerce" despite Hume's insistence that "Agriculture" be the first and foremost aim. The department had charge on land revenue, settlements, advances for works in agricultural improvement, horticulture, livestock breeding, silk, fiber, forests, commerce and trade, salt, opium, excise, stamps, and industrial art. It also collected data and was in charge of censuses, the gazetteers, surveys, geology, and meteorology. Hume was made Secretary of this department in July 1871 leading to his move to Shimla.


title: Allan Octavian Hume

text: With the murder of Lord Mayo in the Andamans in 1872, Hume lost patronage and support for his work. He however went about reforming the department of agriculture, streamlining the collection of meteorological data (the meteorological department was set up by order number 56 on 27 September 1875 signed by Hume) and statistics on cultivation and yield.


title: Allan Octavian Hume

text: Hume proposed the idea of having experimental farms to demonstrate best practices to be set up in every district. He proposed to develop fuelwood plantations "in every village in the drier portions of the country" and thereby provide a substitute heating and cooking fuel so that manure (dried cattle dung was used as fuel by the poor) could be returned to the land. Such plantations, he wrote, were ""a thing that is entirely in accord with the traditions of the country – a thing that the people would understand, appreciate, and, with a little judicious pressure, cooperate in."" He wanted model farms to be established in every district. He noted that rural indebtedness was caused mainly by the use of land as security, a practice that had been introduced by the British. Hume denounced it as another of ""the cruel blunders into which our narrow-minded, though wholly benevolent, desire to reproduce England in India has led us."" Hume also wanted government-run banks, at least until cooperative banks could be established.


title: Allan Octavian Hume

text: The department also supported the publication of several manuals on aspects of cultivation, a list of which Hume included as an appendix to his "Agricultural Reform in India". Hume supported the introduction of cinchona and the project managed by George King to produce quinine in India and deliver malaria medication across India through the postal department at low cost.


title: Allan Octavian Hume

text: Hume was very outspoken and never feared to criticize when he thought the Government was in the wrong. Even in 1861, he objected to the concentration of police and judicial functions in the hands of police superintendents. In March 1861, he took a medical leave due to a breakdown from overwork and departed for Britain. Before leaving, he condemned the flogging and punitive measures initiated by the provincial government as 'barbarous ... torture'. He was allowed to return to Etawah only after apologizing for the tone of his criticism. He criticized the administration of Lord Lytton before 1879 which according to him, had cared little for the welfare and aspiration of the people of India.


title: Allan Octavian Hume

text: Lord Lytton's foreign policy according to Hume had led to the waste of "millions and millions of Indian money". Hume was critical of the land revenue policy and suggested that it was the cause of poverty in India. His superiors were irritated and attempted to restrict his powers and this led him to publish a book on "Agricultural Reform in India" in 1879.


title: Allan Octavian Hume

text: Hume noted that the free and honest expression was not only permitted but encouraged under Lord Mayo and that this freedom was curtailed under Lord Northbrook who succeeded Lord Mayo. When Lord Lytton succeeded Lord Northbrook, the situation worsened for Hume. In 1879 Hume went against the authorities. The Government of Lord Lytton dismissed him from his position in the Secretariat. No clear reason was given except that it ""was based entirely on the consideration of what was most desirable in the interests of the public service"". The press declared that his main wrongdoing was that he was too honest and too independent. The "Pioneer" wrote that it was ""the grossest jobbery ever perpetrated"" ; the "Indian Daily News" wrote that it was a "great wrong" while "The Statesman" said that "undoubtedly he has been treated shamefully and cruelly." "The Englishman" in an article dated 27 June 1879, commenting on the event stated, "There is no security or safety now for officers in Government employment." Demoted, he left Shimla and returned to the North-West Provinces in October 1879, as a member of the Board of Revenue. It has pointed out that he was victimized as he was out of step with the policies of the Government, often intruding into aspects of administration with critical opinions.


title: Allan Octavian Hume

text: In spite of the humiliation of demotion, he did not resign immediately from service and it has been suggested that this was because he needed his salary to support the publication of "The Game Birds of India" that he was working on. Hume retired from the civil service only in 1882. In 1883 he wrote an open letter to the graduates of Calcutta University, having been a fellow of the University of Calcutta from 1870, calling upon them to form their own national political movement. This led in 1885 to the first session of the Indian National Congress held in Bombay. In 1887 writing to the Public Commission of India he made what was then a statement unexpected from a civil servant — "I look upon myself as a Native of India".


title: Allan Octavian Hume

text: Hume's wife Mary died on 30 March 1890 and news of her death reached him just as he reached London on 1 April 1890. Their only daughter Maria Jane Burnley ("Minnie") (1854–1927) had married Ross Scott at Shimla on 28 December 1881. Maria became a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, another occult movement, after moving to England. Ross Scott had been the founding secretary of the Simla Eclectic Theosophical Society, and was sometime Judicial Commissioner of Oudh before his death in 1908. Hume's grandson Montague Allan Hume Scott served with the Royal Engineers in India, and received a Military Cross in 1917.


title: Allan Octavian Hume

text: Hume left India in 1894 and settled at The Chalet, 4 Kingswood Road, Upper Norwood in south London. He died at the age of eighty-three on 31 July 1912. His ashes were buried in Brookwood Cemetery. The bazaar in Etawah was closed on hearing of his death and the Collector, H. R. Neville, presided over a memorial meeting.


title: Allan Octavian Hume

text: The Indian postal department issued a commemorative stamp with his portrait in 1973 and a special cover depicting Rothney Castle, his home in Shimla, was released in 2013.


title: Allan Octavian Hume

text: After retiring from the civil services and towards the end of Lord Lytton's rule, Hume observed that the people of India had a sense of hopelessness and wanted to do something, noting "a sudden violent outbreak of sporadic crime, murders of obnoxious persons, robbery of bankers and looting of bazaars, acts really of lawlessness which by a due coalescence of forces might any day develop into a National Revolt." Concerning the British government, he stated that "a studied and invariable disregard, if not actually contempt for the opinions and feelings of our subjects, is at the present day the leading characteristic of our government in every branch of the administration."


title: Allan Octavian Hume

text: There were agrarian riots in the Deccan and Bombay, and Hume suggested that an Indian Union would be a good safety valve and outlet to avoid further unrest. On 1 March 1883 he wrote a letter to the graduates of the University of Calcutta:


title: Allan Octavian Hume

text: In 1886 he published a pamphlet "The Old Man's Hope" in which he examined poverty in India, questioning charity as a solution for the problem. Here he makes a case for Richard Cobden's Anti-Corn Law League as a model for the struggle in India through the formation of a representative body.


title: Allan Octavian Hume

text: The idea of the Indian National Union took shape and Hume initially had some support from Lord Dufferin for this, although the latter wished to have no official link to it. Dufferin's support was short-lived and in some of his letters he went so far as to call Hume an "idiot", "arch-impostor", and "mischievous busy-body." Dufferin's successor Lansdowne refused to have any dialogue with Hume. Other supporters in England included James Caird (who had also clashed with Lytton over the management of famine in India) and John Bright. Hume also founded an Indian Telegraph Union to fund the transfer of news of Indian matters to newspapers in England and Scotland without interference from British Indian officials who controlled telegrams sent by Reuters. It has been suggested that the idea of the congress was originally conceived in a private meeting of seventeen men after a Theosophical Convention held at Madras in December 1884 but no evidence exists. Hume took the initiative, and it was in March 1885, when a notice was first issued to convene the first Indian National Union to meet at Poona the following December.


title: Allan Octavian Hume

text: He attempted to increase the Congress base by bringing in more farmers, townspeople and Muslims between 1886 and 1887 and this created a backlash from the British, leading to backtracking by the Congress. Hume was disappointed when Congress opposed moves to raise the age of marriage for Indian girls and failed to focus on issues of poverty. Some Indian princes did not like the idea of democracy and some organizations like the United Indian Patriotic Association went about trying to undermine the Congress by showing it as an organization with a seditious character. There was also major rifts along religious lines within the Congress on issues such as the Age of Consent Bill. In 1892, he tried to get the members to act, warning of a violent agrarian revolution but this only outraged the British establishment and frightened the Congress leaders. Disappointed by the continued lack of Indian leaders willing to work for the cause of national emancipation, Hume left India in 1894.


title: Allan Octavian Hume

text: Many Anglo-Indians were against the idea of the Indian National Congress. The press in India tended to look upon it negatively, so much so that Hume is said to have held a very low opinion of journalists even later in life. A satirical work on native rule, "India in 1983", published (anonymously but thought to be written by T. Hart Davies) in 1888 included a character derisively called "A. O. Humebogue".


title: Allan Octavian Hume

text: The organizers of the 27th session of the Indian National Congress at Bankipur (26–28 December 1912) recorded their "profound sorrow at the death of Allan Octavian Hume, C.B., father and founder of the Congress, to whose lifelong services, rendered at rare self-sacrifice, India feels deep and lasting gratitude, and in whose death the cause of Indian progress and reform sustained irreparable loss."


title: Allan Octavian Hume

text: During his career in Etawah, he built up a personal collection of bird specimens, however the first collection that he made was destroyed during the 1857 rebellion. After 1857 Hume made several expeditions to collect birds both on health leave and where work took him. He was Collector and Magistrate of Etawah from 1856 to 1867 during which time he studied the birds of that area. Around 1867 he transferred about 2500 specimens from his collection to a museum in Agra. His most systematic work however began after he moved to Shimla. He later became Commissioner of Inland Customs which made him responsible for the control of of coast from near Peshawar in the northwest to Cuttack on the Bay of Bengal. He travelled on horseback and camel in areas of Rajasthan to negotiate treaties with various local maharajas to control the export of salt, and during these travels he took note of the birdlife.


title: Allan Octavian Hume

text: Hume appears to have planned a comprehensive work on the birds of India around 1870 and a "forthcoming comprehensive work" finds mention in the second edition of "The Cyclopaedia of India" (1871) by his cousin Edward Balfour. His systematic plan to survey and document the birds of the Indian Subcontinent began in earnest after he started accumulating the largest collection of Asiatic birds in his personal museum and library at home in Rothney Castle on Jakko Hill, Simla. Rothney Castle, originally Rothney House was built by Colonel Octavius Edward Rothney and later belonged to P. Mitchell, C.I.E from whom Hume bought it and converted it into a palatial house with some hope that it might be bought by the Government as a Viceregal residence since the Governor-General then occupied "Peterhoff", a building too small for large parties. Hume spent over two hundred thousand pounds on the grounds and buildings. He added enormous reception rooms suitable for large dinner parties and balls, as well as a magnificent conservatory and spacious hall with walls displaying his superb collection of Indian horns. He used a large room for his bird museum. He hired a European gardener, and made the grounds and conservatory a perpetual horticultural exhibition, to which he courteously admitted all visitors. Rothney Castle could only be reached by a steep road, and was never purchased by the British Government.


title: Allan Octavian Hume

text: Hume made several expeditions almost solely to study ornithology, the largest being an expedition to the Indus area begun in late November 1871 and continued until the end of February 1872. He was assisted here by Sir W. Merewether and Francis Day. In March 1873, he visited the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal along with geologists Dr. Ferdinand Stoliczka and Valentine Ball of the Geological Survey of India and James Wood-Mason of the Indian Museum in Calcutta. They were also accompanied by Surgeon-Major Joseph Dougall, medical superintendent at Port Blair, six native trappers-skinners, and supported by others like Jeremiah Nelson Homfray, superintendent of the Andaman orphanage. In 1875, he made an expedition to the Laccadive Islands aboard the marine survey vessel IGS "Clyde" under the command of Staff-Commander Ellis and accompanied by surgeon-naturalist James Armstrong of the Marine Survey. The official purpose of the visit was ostensibly to examine proposed sites for lighthouses. During this expedition Hume collected many bird specimens, apart from conducting a bathymetric survey to determine whether the island chain was separated from continental India by a deep canyon. And in 1881 he made his last ornithological expedition to Manipur, a visit in which he collected and described the Manipur bush quail ("Perdicula manipurensis"), a bird that has remained obscure with few reliable reports since. Hume spent an extra day with his assistants cutting down a large tract of grass so that he could obtain specimens of this species. This expedition was made on special leave following his demotion from the Central Government to a junior position on the Board of Revenue of the North Western Provinces. Apart from personal travel, he also sent out a trained bird-skinner to accompany officers travelling in areas of ornithological interest such as Afghanistan. Around 1878 he was spending about £1500 a year on his ornithological surveys.


title: Allan Octavian Hume

text: Hume was a member of the Asiatic Society of Bengal from January 1870 to 1891 and admitted Fellow of the Linnean Society on 3 November 1904. After returning to England in 1890 he also became president of the Dulwich Liberal and Radical Association.


title: Allan Octavian Hume

text: Hume used his vast bird collection to good use as editor of his journal "Stray Feathers". He also intended to produce a comprehensive publication on the birds of India. Hume employed William Ruxton Davison, who was brought to notice by Dr. George King, as a curator for his personal bird collection. Hume trained Davison and sent him out annually on collection trips to various parts of India as he himself was held up with official responsibilities. In 1883 Hume returned from a trip to find that many pages of the manuscripts that he had maintained over the years had been stolen and sold off as waste paper by a servant. Hume was completely devastated and he began to lose interest in ornithology due to this theft and a landslip, caused by heavy rains in Simla, which had damaged his museum and many of the specimens. He wrote to the British Museum wishing to donate his collection on certain conditions. One of the conditions was that the collection was to be examined by Dr. R. Bowdler Sharpe and personally packed by him, apart from raising Dr. Sharpe's rank and salary due to the additional burden on his work caused by his collection. The British Museum was unable to heed his many conditions. It was only in 1885, after the destruction of nearly 20,000 specimens, that alarm bells were raised by Dr. Sharpe and the museum authorities let him visit India to supervise the transfer of the specimens to the British Museum.


title: Allan Octavian Hume

text: Sharpe visited Hume's private ornithological museum at home and oversaw the packing of specimens for England.: He noted later that:


title: Allan Octavian Hume

text: The Hume collection of birds was packed into 47 cases made of deodar wood constructed on site without nails that could potentially damage specimens and each case weighing about half a ton was transported down the hill to a bullock cart to Kalka and finally the port in Bombay. The material that went to the British Museum in 1885 consisted of 82,000 specimens of which 75,577 (258 being type specimens) were finally placed in the museum. A breakup of that collection is as follows (old names retained). Hume had destroyed 20,000 specimens prior to this as they had been damaged by dermestid beetles. In addition his donations included 223 game trophies and 371 mammal skins.


title: Allan Octavian Hume

text: The Hume Collection contained 258 type specimens. In addition there were nearly 400 mammal specimens including new species such as "Hadromys humei".


title: Allan Octavian Hume

text: The egg collection was made up of carefully authenticated contributions from knowledgeable contacts and on the authenticity and importance of the collection, E. W. Oates noted in the 1901 "Catalogue of the Collection of Birds' Eggs in the British Museum" (Volume 1) that the collection was made up of specimens of known provenance and not accumulated through indiscriminate purchases as tended to be the case with many other collectors.


title: Allan Octavian Hume

text: Hume and his collector Davison took an interest in plants as well. Specimens were collected even on the first expedition to the Lakshadweep in 1875 were studied by George King and later by David Prain. Hume's herbarium specimens were donated to the collection of the Botanical Survey of India at Calcutta.


title: Allan Octavian Hume

text: Hume described many species, some of which are now considered as subspecies. A single genus name that he erected survives in use while others such as "Heteroglaux" Hume, 1873 have sunk into synonymy since. In addition to birds, he described a species of goat as "Ovis blanfordi" in 1877 based on a variation in the horns. It is now considered a variant of the urial ("Ovis vignei"). In his concept of species, Hume was an essentialist and held the idea that small but constant differences defined species. He appreciated the ideas of speciation and how it contradicted divine creation but preferred to maintain a position that did not reject a Creator.


title: Allan Octavian Hume

text: The use of trinomials had not yet gone into regular usage during Hume's time. He used the term "local race". The following subspecies are current placements of taxa that were named as new species by Hume.


title: Allan Octavian Hume

text: An additional species, the large-billed reed-warbler "Acrocephalus orinus" was known from just one specimen collected by him in 1869 but the name that he used, "magnirostris", was found to be preoccupied and replaced by the name "orinus" provided by Harry Oberholser in 1905. The status of the species was contested until DNA comparisons with similar species in 2002 suggested that it was a valid species. It was only in 2006 that the species was seen in the wild in Thailand, with a match to the specimens confirmed using DNA sequencing. Later searches in museums led to several other specimens that had been overlooked and based on the specimen localities, a breeding region was located in Tajikistan and documented in 2011.


title: Allan Octavian Hume

text: This was Hume's first major work on birds. It had 422 pages and accounts of 81 species. It was dedicated to Edward Blyth and Dr. Thomas C. Jerdon who, he wrote "[had] done more for Indian Ornithology than all other modern observers put together" and he described himself as "their friend and pupil". He hoped that his collation, which he noted as being of a poor quality, would form a "nucleus round which future observation may crystallize" and that others around the country could help him "fill in many of the woeful blanks remaining in record".


title: Allan Octavian Hume

text: Hume started the quarterly journal "Stray Feathers" in 1872. At that time the only journal for the Indian region that published on ornithology was the "Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal" and Hume published only two letters in 1870, mainly being a list of errors in the list of Godwin-Austen which had been reduced to an abstract. Several other papers that he submitted to the "Ibis" had not been published. In his preface he also examined if there was merit to start a new journal and in that idea was supported by Stoliczka, who was also an editor for the "Journal of the Asiatic Society":


title: Allan Octavian Hume

text: The President of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Thomas Oldham, in the annual address for 1873 wrote - "We could have wished that the author had  completed the several works which he had already commenced, rather than started a new publication. But we heartily welcome at the same time the issue of "'Stray Feathers".' It promises to be a useful catalogue of the Editor's very noble collection of Indian Birds, and a means of rapid publication of novelties or corrections, always of much value with ornithologists." Hume used the journal to publish descriptions of his new discoveries. He wrote extensively on his own observation as well as critical reviews of all the ornithological works of the time and earned himself the nickname of "Pope of Indian ornithology". He critiqued a monograph on parrots, "Die Papageien" by Friedrich Hermann Otto Finsch suggesting that name changes (by "cabinet naturalists") were aimed at claiming authority to species without the trouble of actually discovering them. He wrote:


title: Allan Octavian Hume

text: Hume in turn was attacked, for instance by Viscount Walden, but Finsch became a friend and Hume named a species, "Psittacula finschii", after him.


title: Allan Octavian Hume

text: In his younger days Hume had studied some geology from the likes of Gideon Mantell and appreciated the synthesis of ideas from other fields into ornithology. Hume included in 1872, a detailed article on the osteology of birds in relation to their classification written by Richard Lydekker who was then in the Geological Survey of India. The early meteorological work in India was done within the department headed by Hume and he saw the value of meteorology in the study of bird distributions. In a work comparing the rainfall zones, he notes how the high rainfall zones indicated affinities to the Malayan fauna.


title: Allan Octavian Hume

text: Hume sometimes mixed personal beliefs in notes that he published in "Stray Feathers". For instance he believed that vultures soared by altering the physics ("altered polarity") of their body and repelling the force of gravity. He further noted that this ability was normal in birds and could be acquired by humans by maintaining spiritual purity, claiming that he knew of at least three Indian Yogis and numerous saints in the past with this ability of ""aethrobacy"".


title: Allan Octavian Hume

text: Hume corresponded with a large number of ornithologists and sportsmen who helped him by reporting from various parts of India. More than 200 correspondents are listed in his "Game Birds" alone and they probably represent only a fraction of the subscribers of "Stray Feathers". This large network made it possible for Hume to cover a much larger geographic region in his ornithological work.


title: Allan Octavian Hume

text: During the lifetime of Hume, Blyth was considered the father of Indian ornithology. Hume's achievement which made use of a large network of correspondents was recognised even during his time. James Murray noted of Hume that "the palm is his as an authority above the rest" when it came to the birds of India and that all future work would be built upon his work.