Mark Boslough stands at the front lines of a battle invisible to most people: the fight against false claims about asteroids, comets, and humanity's ability to defend itself from space threats. As misinformation spreads faster than ever across social media, YouTube, and AI-generated content, the UNM Research Professor has led a new study that reveals how false narratives about planetary defense can undermine public trust in the very science that could save millions of lives.
The study, published in Meteoritics & Planetary Science and conducted with co-authors from 12 institutions, examines how misinformation emerges, spreads, and persists in planetary science—topics that naturally capture widespread public attention and make headlines. But in an era of open-access publishing, algorithmic amplification, and AI-generated content, these same topics have become especially vulnerable to sensationalization and distortion. The problem is not abstract: planetary defense—the science of detecting and potentially deflecting dangerous asteroids and comets—depends entirely on public trust and the willingness of nations to coordinate a global response. When false claims erode confidence in scientific assessments, they can jeopardize emergency preparedness and decision-making at the highest levels.
Through case studies, Boslough and his colleagues demonstrate how misinformation originates from multiple sources: weak peer-review processes, overstated press releases, limited scientific literacy, and the amplification of false narratives through emerging technologies. The researchers document examples that range from the absurd to the dangerous. Interstellar comets are not alien spaceships. Sodom and Gomorrah were not destroyed by a cosmic airburst. Ancient advanced civilizations were not wiped out by a comet swarm 12,900 years ago. These claims might make for compelling science fiction, but they have no scientific support—yet they persist online, passed from generation to generation, sometimes spreading as rapidly as hours in a modern news cycle and sometimes lingering for decades or centuries.
What makes this challenge urgent is the scale at which misinformation now travels. A false claim about an asteroid impact can reach millions through social media before any scientist has a chance to respond. Pseudodocumentaries, fake academic journals, internet clickbait, and AI-generated content—what researchers call "AI slop"—create a dense fog of unreliable information that obscures the real science from public understanding.
But Boslough and his colleagues do not present the problem without proposing solutions. The paper emphasizes practical strategies: proactive communication from scientists, improved scientific literacy in schools and communities, and stronger collaboration between researchers and media professionals. Crucially, the authors stress that scientists cannot treat misinformation as someone else's problem. They must remain engaged in public discourse, actively correcting falsehoods in language everyone can understand, rather than retreating to offices and laboratories and hoping the noise will fade away.
As public interest in space exploration and planetary threats continues to grow, the stakes of clear communication have never been higher. Boslough will bring this message to the Geological Society of America section meeting in Albuquerque, where he will discuss the problem and its specific relevance to New Mexico. The message is simple but vital: science communication is not a luxury or an afterthought—it is a professional obligation and a matter of planetary security.