Is humanity willing to shoot down an asteroid with a 72% chance of hitting Earth within 14 years?
Scientists and experts say there is work to be done.
When NASA presented the hypothetical scenario, devised by the Planetary Defense Coordination Office, to a group of nearly 100 government representatives, they found that their plan to combat an asteroid hurtling toward Earth had several “high-level gaps,” according to a report. NASA slide presentation. . Space officials have “limited willingness to quickly conduct necessary space missions,” and methods for keeping the public informed of an impending disaster are not yet fully developed.
Among participants, from federal agencies such as the State Department and international bodies such as the United Nations Office for Space Affairs, 33% said humanity was unwilling to launch a space mission to prevent an asteroid from hitting the planet, and 19 % said there was ‘reconnaissance’. missions” were not finished yet.
Kelly Fast, NASA’s acting planetary defense officer, said the exercise helped government agencies plan how they would work together to prepare for a future asteroid strike.
“In the unlikely event that we ever face a scenario like this, it won’t be the first time someone has talked about how to treat this,” she said.
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NASA conducts fifth test to measure asteroid readiness
The exercise, designed to test the government’s readiness for an asteroid heading toward Earth, was organized by NASA and the Federal Emergency Management Agency during an April meeting at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, according to a news release . It was the fifth test to gauge whether the authorities are prepared to defend Earth from space. This year’s exercise was the first to involve “international planetary defense personnel.”
In the hypothetical scenario, an asteroid will collide with Earth in 2038. There is a 47% chance that more than 1,000 people will be affected by the collision, and an 8% chance that more than a million people will be affected. It could hit a range of cities in the US, Europe and Africa, including Washington, Dallas, Madrid and Algiers.
In the scenario, participants were not told “the size, composition and long-term trajectory of the asteroid,” according to the press release. Further observations of the asteroid would also hypothetically have to be delayed by at least seven months as the asteroid passed behind the sun – “a critical loss of time.”
Even with years of preparation, the agencies would still have to work efficiently to respond to an approaching asteroid, Fast said. “When you talk about planning a mission, any spacecraft mission, it doesn’t happen on a dime,” she said.
“While 14 years sounds like a long time, that may not be the case when you think about mission development,” Fast added.
Space officials have only one proven method of getting rid of an asteroid on its way to Earth: “kinetic impact,” or crashing a spacecraft into the asteroid to change its trajectory. In 2022, NASA crashed a spacecraft into Dimorphos, a small “moon” orbiting the asteroid Didymos, about 6.7 million miles (10.8 million kilometers) from Earth, successfully shortening the moon’s orbit by 32 minutes, NASA said .
Fast said scientists would have to tailor a space mission to respond to a particular asteroid collision scenario.
“It all depends on the asteroid,” she said. “A single kinetic impactor might work for a smaller asteroid, but not for something much larger.”
Some participants were also skeptical that sufficient federal funding would be available to address the threat, according to the presentation. The decision-making process was “unclear,” the report said.
Authorities would also have a limited ability to gather more information about the incoming asteroid by flying a spacecraft close to it, the evaluators concluded.
The presentation also warned that coordinating the release of information to the public about an asteroid flying toward the planet would pose problems. “Misinformation and disinformation should be addressed,” they wrote.
“Maintaining trust at the start of this event is critical and that means talking early – probably earlier than scientists and advocates are comfortable with,” said another unnamed participant.
Fast said it would be important to “turn information into something that is understandable to the audience, and not be overly technical and jargony.”
The latest exercise, which used data from the test, recommended more testing with the new technology
Fast said people should be reassured that scientists and agencies are coming together to map out strategies in the unlikely event of an asteroid collision.
The scenario was “just an opportunity to further explore these possibilities and our own readiness, and identify how we can do better in the future.”
“It’s actually a good thing to talk through this,” she said.