There are many ways our civilization could come to an abrupt end, but only a handful have to do with forces so powerful and beyond our control that they cannot be stopped. An asteroid strike is one of those world-ending events that we would be completely defenseless against, and the more we try to find ways around them, the more we realize it’s nearly impossible.
According to the most recent count, the number of near-Earth objects (that is, asteroids and comets), meaning those close enough to our planet to pose a potential danger to it, is over 20,000. We know the orbits and behavior of many of them, but not all of them, and this worries a lot of people in powerful places. Even so much so that some are actively trying to do something.
For example, in 2013 the US space agency launched a series of meetings called the Planetary Defense Interagency Tabletop Exercise. Dedicated to all those with a say in planetary defense, the exercise takes place every two years and each time focuses on a new impact scenario for which a solution needs to be found.
We’ve known about such things for some time. For example, in 2021, during the 7th IAA Planetary Defense Conference, the name of the game responded to an asteroid strike somewhere in Europe.
This scenario from three years ago called for Earthlings to know about the asteroid six months before impact and try to find ways to stop the rock. When all was said and done, it turned out that six months wasn’t long enough to do anything about an incoming asteroid. So the exercise eventually turned from an active operation into an evacuation game for the residents of Germany, the Czech Republic and Austria, where an asteroid will hit according to the scenario.
But what about 14 years? Would that be enough time to find a more proactive solution?
Photo: NASA
14 years is the time frame from asteroid discovery to impact on our planet in the latest tabletop exercise conducted as part of the fifth Interagency Planetary Defense Meeting held in April at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. .
We’re talking about this exercise now because there was a preliminary report on it recently, and while it paints a pretty incomplete picture of what we could do with such a threat, it again gives me the feeling that if the asteroids were coming, they were pretty screwed.
The exercise scenario, designed by NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies, the group that calculates the orbit of every known near-Earth object, revolved around an asteroid. “perhaps several hundred yards across” was seen coming towards us.
Simulated math done as part of the scenario said it had a 72 percent chance of hitting our world 14 years after discovery, with impact areas estimated to be nondescript, densely populated areas in North America, southern Europe and northern Africa.
According to the board game rules, the asteroid would be playing a sort of hide and seek game. It would be visible for our tracking methods for several months at a time, but then it would move too close to the Sun, making it impossible for humans to observe it for several more months.
The idea behind this scenario was to see what could be done to stop an asteroid or mitigate the effects of its impact.
Photo: NASA
About 100 scientists from the US and international organizations have been scratching their heads trying to find the best course of action. They’ve considered pretty much everything from sending a probe spacecraft to learn more about the asteroid’s size, composition and orbit to trying to change its trajectory exactly as the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft showed we could easily do .
We are not told exactly what, if any, solution turned out to be best for this scenario. It is what NASA says it is “any diversion or reconnaissance mission would require many years of preparation,” and in my book that means no, not even 14 years of advanced warning would be enough to protect us from space damage.
The advantage is that according to NASA “A large asteroid impact on Earth is highly unlikely in the foreseeable future.” At least we know that for now, because at the end of this month the world’s only space telescope dedicated to finding these things, the Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE), will die on the job.
new telescope, “the first purpose-built infrared space telescope designed to hunt dangerous near-Earth objects,” will be launched in 2027. NASA hopes that by using it, we will learn about more than 90 percent of the dangerous pieces of rock orbiting our planet within a radius of 30 million miles (48 million km).
We’re told to expect a “full after-action report for the bench press,” including strengths, gaps and recommendations, so we’ll update this story as we know more.