Dr. Clark R. Chapman gets to "space out" for a living. He is a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. He looks at the risks of asteroid impacts on the earth. He is involved with a project to find all the "near-Earth asteroids" big enough to do real damage on impact with the Earth. He also compares asteroid impact risks to other risks we face every day. He has discovered some interesting things. Most significantly, he estimated that we are much more likely to be killed in a car accident, war or from smoking than we are from an asteroid impact. However, you ARE more likely to be killed by an asteroid than win your state lottery. There's something to think about. (Svitil, Kathy A. "Asteroid Watcher Worries." Discover March 2006: P. 20-21)
