Asteorid impact: NASA takes deflection possibility into account in exercise
US experts regularly train what to do when an asteroid approaches the earth. One new option is to deflect such a celestial body.
Artistic graphic of an asteroid drifting through space.
(Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
NASA has held a simulation game for the fifth time in order to be able to react in good time to the hypothetical threat to Earth from an asteroid impact. For the first time, the US space agency took into account data from the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission, in which a spacecraft deliberately hit the asteroid moon Dimorphos in September 2022. Such an impact could influence the trajectory of an asteroid, writes NASA. However, such a maneuver would have to be planned many years in advance.
(Image: NASA/JHU-APL/Ed Whitman)
To give humanity enough time to prepare for a possible asteroid impact, NASA is working with the NEO Surveyor on a space telescope that will look for Near Earth Objects (NEOs) in the infrared range. The telescope was previously expected to be launched into space in 2026, but NASA has now announced that the launch date will be 2027 or 2028. According to NASA, there was no current reason for the launch of this mission and the planning game. An impact is not expected in the "foreseeable future".
"International cooperation necessary"
NASA has been holding asteroid emergency simulation games every two years since 2016. For this time, the NASA JPL Center for Near Earth Object Studies had specified the scenario of an asteroid with a diameter of several hundred meters that would hit the Earth in 14 years with a probability of 72 percent. Densely populated areas in North America, Southern Europe or North Africa would be affected. To complicate the decision-making process, the scenario included the fact that the hypothetical asteroid would move too close to the sun for months and would therefore be difficult to observe.
100 representatives from US government agencies took part in the exercise. Terik Daly from the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University, who led the exercise, considers it a success. However, he also emphasized the need for international cooperation due to the potential massive impact of such a scenario. Also in 2016, the United Nations proclaimed June 30 as International Asteroid Day. The aim is to raise public awareness of potential dangers from space.
On September 27, 2022, the NASA probe Dart (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) crashed at a speed of 6 km/s (21,600 km/h) into the approximately 160 m asteroid moon Dimorphos, which orbits the approximately 800 m asteroid Didymos. This was NASA's first test of an asteroid defense concept, the first time mankind had deliberately altered the movement of a celestial body. Neither asteroid nor the debris created by the collision poses any danger to the Earth, and this has not changed as a result of the collision.
(anw)