Earth barely escaped a collision with two asteroids Wednesday. The brush with disaster was an ominous sign for astronomers and astronauts trying to figure out how the individuals of Earth can unite to deal with the asteroid threat. As mankind scans the skies in more detail, it discovers a greater number of “near-earth objects” that underscore the seriousness of the asteroid threat. To investigate Earth’s possibilities for dodging a cosmic bullet, NASA is putting meteor identification and surveillance on the front burner. On the president’s orders, National Aeronautics and Space Administration is testing the scenarios involved with sending humans to explore a near-earth meteor, which some say could happen by 2019.
Meteors get too nearby for ease and comfort
The two meteors that passed Wednesday were considered small. However they came within half the distance of the Moon. Near-misses like that are commonplace, Donald Yeomans, manager of NASA’s Near Planet Network, told CNN, but most of the time they pass unnoticed. What makes Wednesday’s asteroid encounter noteworthy is the two rocks, between 20 and 60 feet in diameter, were spotted en route. NASA said the Catalina Sky Survey near Tucson, Ariz., detected the asteroids Sunday morning during routine scanning. Within the CNN article, Yeomans said a greater number of more powerful telescopes was needed. Only then can scientists adequately gauge the potential threat. He said humans were blissfully ignorant of the asteroid threat until scientists started looking for them in the 1990s and realized they were a problem.
Computer animation demonstrates scary scenario
For mankind to survive, the Association of Space Explorers says a united global effort to create an answer to the asteroid threat is absolutely necessary. The ASE president, astronaut Chris Hadfield of Canada, told the Toronto Star that humans can be lucky if a meteor doesn’t hit before they know what to do over it. In 2008, the United Nations received a report from the ASE defining the possibilities accessible for deflecting a killer asteroid. The report said existing technology is capable of deflecting a threatening asteroid. The most plausible methods would be to crash a probe to the asteroid. The impact could check its velocity enough to make the asteroid late in arriving at the point where it would intersect the Earth’s path. Planning for such a mission would need to start 10 to 18 years before the predicted collision. The video below shows what could happen.
Human exploration of meteor in the works
Planning has started to send astronauts to an asteroid within the next 15 years. The project is part of a plan to revamp human spaceflight submitted by the Obama administration earlier this year. As reported by the Houston Chronicle, politicians in Congress prefer revisiting the moon landings of four decades ago, although they are apprised of the asteroid threat. But Lockheed Martin, which has a NASA contract to build the Orion spacecraft, is proposing a quest to a nearby asteroid by 2019. The objective of the mission would be to learn more about asteroids to better understand how to prevent them from striking Earth.
Additional reading
CNN
cnn.com/2010/US/09/08/earth.two.asteroids/index.html?npt=NP1
Toronto Star
thestar.com/article/857006–asteroid-warning-get-ready-for-the-big-one-astronauts-say
Houston Chronicle
chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/7188211.html
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