Experts call for urgent action to prevent deadly asteroid strike

Leading astronomers and scientists, including evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins and physicist Brian Cox, have called for more to be done to prevent a devastating asteroid strike.

One hundred leading names, including cosmonauts and astronauts, the Astronomer Royal and rock guitarist Brian May, have made a declaration demanding action.

They have called for a rapid 100-fold increase in the discovery and tracking of near-Earth asteroids to 100,000 a year within a decade. There are a million asteroids in the Solar System with the potential to strike Earth, they said, but only 10,000 have been discovered.