NASA has just found an asteroid on a collision course with Earth.
There isn’t much time, and if something is not done, millions of people could die.
Ideas about what to do are frantically discussed.
Should we use a nuke to blow up the asteroid?
Or maybe we could push it off course using a spacecraft.
But will any of this work?
And if it doesn't, what will happen to planet Earth?
This was a very real scenario at the International Academy of Astronautics' Planetary Defense
Conference.
Every two years this conference is held and scientists from around the world participate
in the asteroid drill.
Most years the asteroid could be diverted from its course and Earth would be saved,
but this time things were different.
This was the first time the asteroid was discovered with only months for scientists to plan a
way to stop it instead of years.
Could it be done?
Could scientists save our planet and countless lives from the dangers of the asteroid?
This scenario does not have a happy ending.
The details of the asteroid impact scenario were designed by the Center for Near-Earth
Object Studies at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and they did not make it easy.
Although this is all hypothetical, it could become a reality at any point in time.
That is why scientists and astronomers practice dealing with an incoming asteroid relatively
frequently.
However, this time things were a little more tricky.
On April 26 the scientists learned of the incoming asteroid.
The early detection systems had not picked up the dangerous space rock until it was only
a few months away from hitting our planet.
Originally when the asteroid was spotted the chances of it hitting Earth were unclear.
It wasn’t until new data came in that the scientists discovered that in just under six
months, the asteroid would smash into our planet causing massive amounts of destruction.
The asteroid itself was approximately 100 feet long and 200 feet wide.
After the calculations were checked and rechecked, the asteroid was given a one in twenty chance
of striking the Earth on October 20th of this year.
If the asteroid was going to hit Earth, it was not yet clear where exactly the impact
would be.
However, everyone was still holding their breath that the rogue space rock would safely
pass us by, as six months would not be enough time to launch effective countermeasures.
Then, a week later on May 2nd, the scientists received the worst possible news.
They were now 100% certain the asteroid was going to hit Earth.
The final data had been collected and the numbers had been crunched.
It was inevitable; on October 20th the asteroid would slam into our planet, and unless the
scientists of NASA did something quickly, millions of lives would be lost.
At this point the scientists had narrowed down the impact location to somewhere in North
Africa or Europe.
With such short notice, was there any way the scientists could stop the asteroid?
Everyone in the room frantically began writing down calculations.
People shouted at one another to check on available launch sites and technology.
It was a mad dash to figure out how to stop the asteroid and save the lives of countless
people.
As more and more ideas were presented and cut down by lack of time or resources, things
began to look grim.
The asteroid was coming, and it seemed like there was nothing the human species could
do about it.
The scientists scrambled to come up with any viable option.
A contingency plan was put in place to start evacuating people immediately.
However, the uncertainty of the exact impact location put the amount of people that needed
to be moved at unreachable levels.
Scientists narrowed down which missions might be able to stop the asteroid impact, or at
least collect more data on the object.
Suddenly new information came in.
There was good news and bad news.
The good news was the impact site had been narrowed down, which would allow for evacuation
efforts to become more focused.
The bad news: the asteroid was going to hit somewhere inside a populated region of central
Europe.
This meant a lot of people would need to be relocated, and there might not be enough time
to get them all out.
The impact sight was calculated to be just south of Prague, putting parts of the Czech
Republic, Germany, and Austria in the blast zone.
The time to launch a mission was now.
Yet was there really anything that NASA and other space agencies could do in such a short
time?
It seemed unlikely, but they had to try.
It was time to take drastic measures.
A plan to use nuclear devices to damage the asteroid and knock it off course was presented.
The scientists ran the calculations of how powerful the explosion would have to be to
disrupt the asteroid, and found that they could only make very general predictions.
The problem was they didn’t know the exact composition of the asteroid, and therefore,
couldn’t calculate its density and mass.
This would lead to too many uncertainties.
If the nuclear explosion was too small it wouldn’t knock the asteroid off course.
If it was too big it could cause the asteroid to break apart, sending hundreds of smaller
space rocks on a collision course with our planet.
This could mean multiple locations around the world would be hit, and could cause even
more damage and loss of life.
On the other hand, if they were able to load a rocket with enough nuclear explosives to
vaporize the asteroid, then the problem would be solved.
However, the uncertainty of the composition of the asteroid made this proposal too risky.
But the main problem was time.
There just wasn’t enough time to prep and launch a spacecraft that could reach the asteroid
and deploy its payload.
In reality a mission of this magnitude would require several years of planning.
The scientists estimated the very quickest turnaround time for a nuclear mission to be
successful would be two years.
Unfortunately, they didn’t have two years; they only had months before impact.
The nuclear option was now off the table.
It would seem there was nothing left to do except wait for the asteroid to hit Earth.
However, one group of scientists suggested that if they could gather more data, they’d
be able to save more lives.
Their plan was to launch a recon mission to find out more about the asteroid.
The more data they had, the better plan they could create, the more people they could evacuate
and save.
This mission could be launched within a short time frame, as they already had exploratory
spacecraft prepped for launch.
In the scenario the recon mission gathered data and determined the diameter of the object
within 10% accuracy.
Now the scientists knew the asteroid was 118 meters in diameter plus or minus 12 meters.
This substantially narrowed down the actual area that would be damaged by the impact.
Now the evacuation efforts could focus on a smaller area and save more lives.
The final conclusion of the scientists was that there was no way to stop the incoming
asteroid, but by launching the recon mission, they could save many more lives using more
precise data.
This was the best case scenario given the technology we have today.
It is a sobering thought that there could be an asteroid on a collision course with
Earth at this very moment, and we just haven’t discovered it yet.
And that this scenario could become very real very quickly.
The scientists determined that with the infrastructure and spacecraft we have today, a mission to
stop an asteroid with such short notice would not be possible.
This prompted a discussion on why it is so important to improve our rapid launch capabilities,
because if this scenario happened in real life, the asteroid would wipe out everything
in a 100 kilometer diameter of the impact site.
Even though both the recon mission and the nuclear strike could have reduced the destruction
caused by the asteroid, neither would have had enough time to be 100% effective using
the technology and infrastructure we have today.
NASA has been working on early detection systems for a while now, and many asteroids have already
been found and are being tracked.
For the ones we have already located, we will have plenty of warning if they are going to
come near Earth.
However, we can’t plan for random collisions that alter the courses of asteroids, which
may knock one into our path with very little warning.
We also can’t detect asteroids that could pass through our solar system from interstellar
space.
These types of asteroids are uncommon, but it is not impossible that someday they might
suddenly be on a collision course with Earth.
It is estimated that for even a small asteroid we would need years in order to plan, launch,
and nudge the space rock off its trajectory towards our planet.
If we only have months to figure out a way to stop an asteroid, as of right now, there
is nothing we can do but wait for it to hit our planet.
This scenario did however show that there were several ways to at least mitigate the
casualties from an asteroid impact.
As the asteroid gets closer, and more data is gathered, we have the means to calculate
where the asteroid will hit with a reasonable amount of accuracy.
This would allow us to focus our resources on evacuating as many people as possible in
that specific area, instead of trying to spread out our resources across the globe due to
uncertainty.
Mitigating casualties is not the best case scenario, but right now, it’s the best we
can do if an asteroid were to hit Earth with little warning.
Later in 2021 NASA will launch the Double Asteroid Redirection Test or DART mission,
which will lay the groundwork for future missions to deflect asteroids off a collision course
with our planet.
However, these types of missions are brand new, and therefore, we still need a lot of
time to refine the technology and procedures necessary for successfully moving asteroids
with the technology.
The way DART works is that the spacecraft slams into a small asteroid causing the path
of the space rock to shift slightly.
If this is done far enough in advance, then even a small push would be enough to knock
the asteroid off its course.
NASA is also planning on launching the Near-Earth Object Surveillance Mission in the mid-2020s.
This new satellite will scour the solar system for yet to be discovered asteroids that may
one day pose a threat to our planet.
The idea is to prevent any surprise emergencies like the one that was conducted at the International
Academy of Astronautics' Planetary Defense Conference.
With enough warning time we could shift an asteroid's trajectory even using the technology
we have today, but time is key.
We need a lot of it in order to be successful.
We’re talking years, or even decades of advance notice would be needed.
The key takeaways from the asteroid impact scenario from the International Academy of
Astronautics' Planetary Defense Conference are that we need to invest more in our space
program and technology.
It is not a matter of if an asteroid will ever be on a collision course with Earth,
but when.
We will have to save our planet from an asteroid impact at some point.
As of right now, if we don’t have years of lead time to launch a mission to push an
asteroid off its collision course with Earth, it will hit us, and there is no way of stopping
it.
Now watch “Can Earth Be Destroyed By One Of These Space Events?”
Or check out “What Would Happen If We Detonate a Nuke in Space?”