Asteroid and Comet Hazard

Present section of the Laboratory page is an attempt to describe in Russian the complex of problems connected with asteroid - comet hazard. Two books written in different times by the staff-members of the Laboratory on the subject matter are presented here. The first one is "Asteroid-Comet Hazard" was published by Yu.D.Medvedev, M.L.Sveshnikov, A.G.Sokolsky, E.I.Timoshkova, Yu.A.Chernetenko, N.S.Chernykh, V.A.Shor in 1996 in St.Petersburg (Ed. A.G.Sokolsky, ITA RAN, pp. 1- 244). The book is an introductory treatise into the problem of the hazard due to asteroids and comets approaching the Earth. The present day knowledge of the dynamics and physics of asteroids and comets, the estimation of the probability of their impacts on the Earth and connected hazard of regional or global catastrophes are described in the book. An account of possible counteractions against collision of dangerous celestial bodies with the Earth has been also given. On present page the content of the book is reproduced practically in the same state as it was published in 1996 (only few misprints and discrepancies have been corrected and some appendices have been omitted). No attempt to bring content of the book into better agreement with current state of the art in this field has been done, Nevertheless the main part of the content of the book is not out of date. The interested reader can find more new data in the second work Catalogue of potentially hazardous asteroids and comets by T.A.Vinogradova, N.B.Zheleznov, V.B.Kuznetsov, Yu.A.Chernetenko, V.A.Shor (Trudy IPA RAS, v. 9, pp 1- 220, St.Petersburg, 2003) also presented on the page.