Asteroids have existed in our solar system ever since its birth 4.6 billion years ago. Only until recently, has life evolved and taken hold of our planet, but life is fragile and susceptible to large amounts of change over the century, asteroids being one of them.
In the year 2029, where the asteroid known as 99942 Apophis, a speed of 67,000 miles per hour, is expected to make a flyby of Earth on April 13, 2029, and will come so close to the Earth that it will pass below the orbits of some geosynchronous satellites and will be visible from both rural and suburban areas.
MIT scientists explain that the asteroid would come so close to our planet’s gravity it would alter the trajectory of the asteroid. If the asteroid hits the Earth, either in the Pacific Ocean, North Atlantic, or North America, we are talking about the massive destruction of localized and inhabited land around a 100,000 km area and would have long-lasting effects on our planet as well as the global climate.
This would effectively plunge our planet into an impact-induced winter, causing crop failure, and blocking sunlight from reaching the surface, killing off most surface life, but NASA has been hard at work these past six months developing a “planet-killer” asteroid deflection plan.
From MIT to NASA, several possible asteroid deflection ideas have been proposed. MIT scientists proposed sending a “scout” first to “gain specific measurements of the asteroid or two scouts: one to measure the asteroid and the other to push it slightly off course before a large projectile can be used to ensure it misses Earth. While the craziest idea proposed by NASA, is to paint one side of the asteroid white, then use the sun as a sort of sail to change the asteroids orbit slightly so that Apophis won’t hit the Earth in 2036, NASA is currently planning the Double Asteroid Redirection Test or (DART) for short.
The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission is directed by NASA to the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) with support from several NASA centers: the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), Johnson Space Center (JSC), Glenn Research Center (GRC), and Langley Research Center (LRC).
“DART is a planetary defense-driven test of technologies for preventing an impact of Earth by a hazardous asteroid…and will be the first demonstration of the kinetic impactor technique to change the motion of an asteroid in space,” according to NASA.
The goal of the DART mission is to study the effects of an asteroid impact by deliberately crashing into the binary near-Earth object known as 65803 Didymos, in order to change its speed.
“By deliberately crashing itself into the moonlet at a speed of approximately 6.6 km/s, with the aid of an onboard camera (named DRACO) and sophisticated autonomous navigation software, the collision will change the speed of the moonlet in its orbit around the main body by a fraction of one percent, but this will change the orbital period of the moonlet by several minutes – enough to be observed and measured using telescopes on Earth,” explained NASA officials.
Currently, the DART mission is scheduled to take place in the year 2021.
With this breakthrough in planetary defense from near-Earth objects, NASA will help further our understanding of the effects of asteroid impacts and how we can deflect these objects from ever hitting the Earth and causing a potential mass extinction. It is clear that NASA is making sure our species does not go down in a blaze of glory like the Dinosaurs.
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Unfortunately, “imitation of ebullient activity” for the development and testing of asteroid deflection methods is continued…
With accounting of the results of computer simulations (see: “Deflecting by kinetic impact: sensitivity to asteroid properties” by M. Bruck Syal, J. M. Owen and, P. L. Miller, Icarus, Volume 269, p. 50-61, 2016; and “Numerical Simulations of Laboratory Scale, Hypervelocity Impact Experiments for Asteroid Deflection Code Validation” by T. P. Remington, J. M. Owen, A. M. Nakamura, P. L. Miller and M. Bruck Syal, 20 February 2020, Earth and Space Science. DOI: 10.1029/2018EA000474), I can agree with numerous doubts about the expected effectiveness of the impact approach to asteroid deflection. Moreover, the “porosity of very loose aggregates” of all NEAs (through and through!) is not at all the “monolith porosity” used in the model. The detailed photos and probe impacting of asteroids Bennu and Ryugu revealed and confirmed their natural rubble-pile properties. Such an internal structure will completely prevent shock wave propagation and proper impulse transfer. The low-velocity ejection of asteroid material will most likely also not lead to a sufficient push for the same reasons – it will require escaping of many thousands of tons to achieve it. By the way, it seems strange the lack of preliminary conducting much cheaper laboratory/field experimental tests with compliance of the scale of masses and velocities. For example, a bullet shot at a very large “bag” with stones of various sizes and interferometric measurements of its possible displacement. Therefore it is unlikely that the kinetic impact will work being neither effective nor scalable even to asteroids capable of country-wide destruction.
As of now, based on system analysis, it is clear that asteroid ablation using highly concentrated sunlight is the only method that meets all of the following criteria: scalability up to global-threat sizes and any type of hazardous bodies as well as low cost and environmental friendliness. This method converts the asteroid to a “natural rocket”, providing more than enough thrust without fuel and energy concerns.
An improved concept for such solar-based deflection using an innovative solar collector was proposed and substantiated back in 2013 – see https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11038-012-9410-2
and also a short demo-video
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Great story ! It is important for us to know what is in the future.
Thanks for the info. I am always fascinated by this stuff.