Is humanity ready to face an asteroid with a 72% chance of hitting Earth in 14 years?
Scientists and experts say much work needs to be done.
When NASA presented a hypothetical scenario, proposed by the Planetary Defense Coordination Office, to a group of nearly 100 government officials, they found that their plan for dealing with an asteroid hurtling toward Earth had several “high-level gaps,” according to a NASA presentation. . Space officials have “limited readiness to rapidly implement necessary space missions” and methods to inform the public of impending disaster are not fully developed.
Of the participants, from federal agencies such as the State Department and international bodies such as the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs, 33% said humanity is not ready to launch a space mission to prevent an asteroid from impacting the planet, and 19% said “research” . missions” were not ready.
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 do face such a scenario, it won’t be the first time someone has talked about how to handle it,” she said.
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NASA conducted a fifth test to gauge the readiness of the asteroid
The exercise, which aims to test the government’s preparedness for an Earth-bound asteroid, was organized by NASA and the Federal Emergency Management Agency at an April meeting at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, according to a news release. It was the fifth test to assess whether the authorities were ready to defend Earth from space. This year’s exercise was the first to include the “International Collaborators in Planetary Defense”.
In a hypothetical scenario, an asteroid collides with Earth in 2038. The impact would have a 47% chance of affecting more than 1,000 people, and an 8% chance of affecting more than a million. It could hit a swath 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 have to be hypothetically delayed by at least seven months as the asteroid passed behind the Sun – a “critical loss of time”.
Even with years of preparation, agencies would still have to work efficiently to respond to an approaching asteroid, Fast said. “When you’re talking about mission planning, any spacecraft mission, it’s not going to happen on a dime,” she said.
“While 14 years sounds like a long time, it doesn’t really have to be when you think about mission evolution,” Fast added.
Space officials have only one tested way to deflect an asteroid on its way to Earth — a “kinetic impact,” or bumping a spacecraft into an asteroid to change its trajectory. In 2022, NASA crashed a spacecraft into Dimorphos, a small “moon” that orbits the asteroid Didymos about 6.8 million miles from Earth, successfully shortening the moon’s orbit by 32 minutes, according to NASA.
Fast said scientists will need to tailor the space mission to respond to a specific 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 attendees were also skeptical that enough federal funding would be available to address the threat, according to the presentation. She said the decision-making process was “unclear”.
Authorities would also have limited ability to gather more information about an incoming asteroid by passing a spacecraft close to it, the evaluators concluded.
The presentation also warned that coordinating the release of information about an asteroid flying toward the planet would present problems. “Disinformation and disinformation would have to be addressed,” they wrote.
“Maintaining trust at the start of this event is critical, and that means speaking early — probably earlier than scientists and lawyers are comfortable with,” said another unnamed attendee.
Fast said it would be important to “turn the information into something the public can understand and not be overly technical and jargon.”
A recent exercise that used data from the test recommended further tests of the new technology
Fast said people should be reassured that scientists and agencies are meeting to map out strategies in the unlikely event of an asteroid impact.
The scenario was “just a chance to continue to explore those options and our own preparedness and identify how we can improve in the future.”
“It’s actually a good thing to talk about,” she said.