Asteroid: Deadly Impact When he first came to the high desert, Gene Shoemaker wondered if he was too late. Was the West all explored, the battles fought, mysteries solved? But geologists are taught that truth lies in the rocks and dirt underfoot. Step by step he pressed the Earth for its secrets. What Gene Shoemaker found has made the ground itself less firm Planet Earth not nearly as safe as we always assumed. It's like being in a hail of bullets going by all the time. They are bullets. They're bullets out there in space. These things have hit the Earth in the past; they will hit the Earth in the future. It will produce a catastrophe that exceeds all other known natural disasters by a large measure. Before Gene Shoemaker, few people gave it much thought One of the most powerful forces in the making of our planet, and perhaps the deadliest hazard we face. This is the story of impact! March 23, 1993: Great telescopes around the world aimed their sights deep into the night They were peering far into space searching for traces of the Big Bang at the outermost reaches of the universe. But at one tiny telescope on a lonesome peak in California, three old friends were rummaging in a part of space much closer to home. Five, four, three, two, one, I'm on... Gene Shoemaker, geologist, was looking for rocks not on the ground but in the sky. That night he and his team found something astounding a portent of another kind of Big Bang.