Anyone worried about the sun frying Earth sometime in the next billion years can rest easy: Astronomers have devised a way to move our planet to a safer orbit. In a paper accepted by the journal Astrophysics and Space Science , planetary scientist Don Korycansky of the University of California-Santa Cruz and colleagues detail a plan to remove Earth from its current orbit to a cooler one using ''gravitational slingshot'' tugs provided by massive asteroids or comets redirected to pass nearby. ''Large-scale planetary engineering is possible with technical procedures we know about now,'' Korycansky says. - linda 2-15-2001 6:15 pm [link] [5 comments]
