*ISLAMABAD – Here’s a hypothetical: a telescope detects an asteroid between100 and 300 meters in diameter racing through our solar system at 14kilometers per second, 57 million kilometers from Earth.*
Astronomers estimate a one percent risk the space rock will collide withour planet on April 27, 2027. What should we do?
It’s this potentially catastrophic scenario that 300 astronomers,scientists, engineers and emergency experts are applying their collectiveminds to this week in a Washington suburb, the fourth such internationaleffort since 2013.
“We have to make sure people understand this is not about Hollywood,” saidNASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine as he opened the sixth InternationalPlanetary Defense Conference at the University of Maryland’s campus inCollege Park.
Countries represented include China, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Russiaand the United States.
The idea that the planet Earth may one day have to defend itself against anasteroid used to elicit what experts call a “giggle factor.”
But a meteor that blew up in the atmosphere over Russia on February 15,2013, helped put an end to the sneers.
On that morning, a 65-foot (20-meter) asteroid appear out of nowhere overthe southern Urals, exploding 14 miles (23 kilometers) above the town ofChelyabinsk with such force that it shattered the windows of thousands ofbuildings.
A thousand people were injured by the shards.
But “the positive aspect of Chelyabinsk is that it made the public aware,it made the political decision makers aware,” Detlef Koschny, co-manager ofthe Planetary Defence Office of the European Space Agency (ESA) told AFP.*How many?*
Only those asteroids whose orbit around our Sun brings them within 31million miles of our planet — defined as “near Earth” — are of interest.
Astronomers are finding new ones each day: more than 700 so far this year,for a total of 20,001, said Lindley Johnson of NASA’s Planetary DefenseCoordination Office, which was created in 2016.
Among the most risky is a rock named 2000SG344: 165 feet in diameter, witha one in 2,096 chance in striking the Earth within a hundred years,according to the ESA.
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The majority are very small, but 942 are more than 0.6 miles across,estimates astronomer Alan Harris.
The scientist told an audience that some large ones are probably still outthere: “A fair fraction of the biggest ones are hiding… basically parkedbehind the Sun.”
They are found mainly by two US telescopes, one in Arizona and the other inHawaii.
The ESA has built a telescope for this purpose in Spain and is planningothers in Chile and Sicily.
Many astronomers are demanding a space telescope because terrestrialtelescopes are unable to detect objects on the other side of the Sun.*Deflecting an asteroid*
This week’s exercise seeks to simulate global response to a catastrophicmeteorite. The first step is aiming telescopes at the threat to preciselycalculate its speed and trajectory, following rough initial estimates.
Then it boils down to two choices: try to deflect the object, or evacuate.
If it is less than 165 feet, the international consensus is to evacuate thethreatened region. According to Koschny, it is possible to predict thecountry it will strike two weeks ahead. Days away from impact, it can benarrowed down to within hundreds of kilometers.
What about bigger objects? Trying to nuke them to smithereens like in themovie Armageddon would be bad idea, because it could just create smallerbut still dangerous pieces.
The plan, instead, is to launch a device toward the asteroid to divert itstrajectory — like a cosmic bumper car. -APP/AFP
