This is John Batchel, conversation with Professor Richard Binzel of MIT, who along with his colleagues

Julian DeWitt, Professor Planetary Science MIT, and Artem Berdenoff, research scientists, planetary science at MIT.

We discuss asteroids, the dangerous kind, the near-Earth objects,

and Richard outlines how we categorize them. There is the certainty that we will be hit with

the big ones someday, but not easily imaginable in our lifetimes. In Earth's lifetimes, many times have we been hit by big ones.

Richard answers the question, how do you know where they're going? He explains how difficult it is.

This article in Nature magazine that I speak to the gentleman about, the professors about,

they and their authors put together a discovery.

It's a James Webb Space Telescope, which reads the infrared, not visible light.

Staring at Trappist 1, a star many hundreds of light years out,

but it's surrounded by what looks to be rocky and wet planets. Some of them

in orbit around Trappist 1, and some of them in the habitable zone. That would be where the

sunlight is adequate to sustain life as we know it, but not dry up the water that's there,

or make life difficult because it's locked in the gravity of the star.

They were staring at it and all of a sudden these meteorites are streaking across. What are they?

Well, they turned out to be unknown meteorites. Very small. Very small. Deca meter.

And why that's of interest is that they're the product of collisions, the kind And why that's of interest

is that they're the product of collisions,

the kind of collision that sends asteroids

towards the earth,

crossing the orbit of the earth

randomly.

...