MOSCOW, Oct. 30 (UPI) -- Anatoly Perminov, the Russian Space Agency chief, announced at a recent news conference that there were plans to develop a space system that could protect the Earth from a potential asteroid impact by 2040.

Members of the scientific community are unanimous in that the asteroid danger is real and that some measures should be taken to prevent it. The discovery of Apophis three years ago made them and the general public even more aware of that threat.

Apophis will pass exceptionally close to the Earth in 2029, only 24,000 miles away, which is where we have most of our communications satellites. Terrestrial gravity might cause this asteroid to leave its trajectory and collide with the Earth in 2036.

The consequences of such an impact would be much more dramatic than the fallout of the Tunguska event, the meteoroid-caused explosion near the Tunguska River in Siberia less than a hundred years ago. Yet the scale of the potential damage would be local rather than global, with Apophis measuring only 1,100 feet in diameter. A global disaster can only be caused by an asteroid as large as 3,300 feet across or more.

As far as collisions with space rocks are concerned, the Earth has, in fact, been more fortunate than other planets. Its close neighbors Mars and Mercury have their surfaces riddled with craters.