Law Commons^™

Asteroids And Comets: U.S. And International Law And The Lowest-Probability, Highest Consequence Risk, Michael B. Gerrard, Anna W. Barber

Faculty Scholarship

Asteroids and comets pose unique policy problems. They are the ultimate example of a low probability, high consequence event: no one in recorded human history is confirmed to have ever died from an asteroid or a comet, but the odds are that at some time in the next several centuries (and conceivably next year) an asteroid or a comet will cause mass localized destruction and that at some time in the coming half million years (and conceivably next year), an asteroid or a comet will kill several billion people. The sudden extinction of the dinosaurs, and most other species 65 …