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I believe a half kilometer width object is assessed as significant enough to alter life on earth as we know it. I believ a half-KM width is the bar for tracking efforts now in place.

I think I read that a KM(kilometer)-wide object impacting earth is assessed as civilization ending (ie, extinction or close to it).

Check out 1999 AN's planned visit in 2044.
http://www.iac.es/galeria/mrk/1999an10_eng.html

http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news018.html
This page has some information but I truly do not expect it to contain the entire scuttlebutt. I do not expect the public to be informed or warned of what the government may know or expect to be the truth, especially in such a lengthy outyear. The USG/Brit Govt got a lot more proactive on NEO programs in the late 1990's...check out the "Eros" mission...timing and explanation of why.

I believe in mid-late 1990's perhaps we had a near-miss after the fact, that caught everyone by surprise. Maybe, as 2027 approaches, we can expect some more feel-good movies from Hollywood, like "Deep Impact", to reassure people that "the big one" will miss us or we will survive it.

So just keep paying the mortgage and credit card bills, for now. Maybe 40-year mortgages are not such a bad idea!

A couple more sites I bookmarked some time back.
http://impact.arc.nasa.gov/
http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/NEO/TheNEOPage.html

I believe a half kilometer width object is assessed as significant enough to alter life on earth as we know it. I believ a half-KM width is the bar for tracking efforts now in place.

I posted a link to an impact calaulator in reply #50. A 1000 ft Dia iron asteroid would not provide any global scale problems.