Bolden, Holdren, Shelton to Testify Next Week on Threats from Space

NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden, Presidential Science Adviser John Holdren and Air Force Space Command Commander Gen. William Shelton will head to Capitol Hill next week to testify about the threat from meteors and comets.

The House Science, Space and Technology Committee has scheduled a hearing on Wednesday, March 6, at 2:00 pm ET, which they call “Part I” of hearings that will review U.S. government efforts to track and mitigate the threat posed by these celestial objects.

Asteroids are rocks in space.   If they enter Earth’s atmosphere, they are called meteors (or fireballs).  Any portions that reach the surface are called meteorites.   A meteor exploded over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk on February 15, injuring more than 1,000 people — mostly from flying glass as windows broke from the shock wave created by the meteor’s interaction with the atmosphere.