The scars of a past fraught with collision can be seen throughout the solar system. craters on the Moon, Mercury, and Mars are caused by these impacts. Most of the impact scars disappeared over time because of active geology.
We know how catastrophic some of these impacts were.
Our solar system is a calm place compared to what it used to be There were more rocks moving around back in the day. The Late Heavy Bombardment is an example of that.
About 75% of all plant and animal species in existence at the time were wiped out by the Chicxulub Impact event. The impactor was about 120 miles in diameter and 12 miles in depth. It would end human civilization if that happened today.
Even though the Solar System has calmed down, there is still a chance that a large asteroid could wipe out our civilization. A 1 km diameter asteroid will slam into Earth once every 440,000 years, according toAstronomers. An asteroid of that size would leave a crater of 13.6 km in diameter and have an impact force of 46,300 Megaton oftnt. It could also cause massive forest fires. It would be terrible.
We know where most of the largest rocks are and how they travel around the Sun. Most of the risk we face comes from undetected small bodies. Rocks that are too small to wipe out civilization and large enough to wipe out a country are still out there.
One day, there will be a defence against all the rocks that threaten Earth. Near Earth objects are also known as NEOs. In 2005, the US Congress directed NASA to find 90 percent of the planets more than 140 meters across that are within 30 million miles of our planet's equator. The effort is under the auspices of NASA.
The detection of dangerous space rocks isn't as exciting as other missions. The kind of enthusiasm that unseen asteroids will never generate is generated by the images from the james wbb space telescope The landing of the Perseverance Rover on the surface of Mars is more captivating than the number of small space rocks that have been found.
There's a lot at stake when it comes to asteroids, Earth, and affairs here on Earth. The effort to catalog asteroids and figure out how to protect Earth from deadly impacts is an interesting story. NASA is one of the new characters in the story.
“NEO Surveyor represents the next generation for NASA’s ability to quickly detect, track, and characterize potentially hazardous near-Earth objects.”
Lindley Johnson, NASA’s Planetary Defense Officer at PDCO.
The only purpose of the telescope is to hunt down and catalog asteroids that threaten Earth. The spacecraft just passed a critical review and is moving into the final design and fabrication phase. The goal of the mission is to find the hardest-to- find Near Earth objects.
The low hanging fruit has been picked. We have a good idea of where the large ones are and where they go. Many of them have been found using ground-based telescopes. The hard-to-spot rocks are what's left.
Lindley Johnson, NASA's Planetary Defense Officer at PDCO, said that the next generation of NASA's ability to quickly detect, track, and characterize potentially hazardous near- Earth objects is called NEO Surveyor. While ground-based telescopes are essential for us to continually watch the skies, a space-based observatory is the ultimate high ground that will enable NASA's planetary defence strategy.
The mission would cost $600 million, according to a white paper. It would help locate the most elusive asteroids. According to the white paper, smaller NEOs constitute a new threat regime that cannot be easily detected from the ground. The initial white paper states that the NEO Surveyor will be able to detect.
NASA says that space rocks less than 25 meters will burn up in the Earth's atmosphere, causing little or no damage.
Since the white paper, the mission parameters have changed a lot. The price tag for a launch is now estimated at over a billion dollars. At least two-thirds of the near-Earth objects are larger than 140 meters. If these rocks hit Earth, they will cause a lot of damage. There are two types of asteroids that are very difficult to detect, bright and dark. Most of them are hidden in the glare of the sun. A 50 cm (20 in) telescope is used to find them with the NEO Surveyor.
There is a space telescope next to the NEO Surveyor. The JWST is in a halo around the L 2 point, while the SURVEYOR is in a straight line. It will be able to look for asteroids in the glare of the Sun, one of their last hiding places.
The pace at which we find large asteroids has slowed. Scott Sheppard discovered a kilometer-sized asteroid in January. It was the largest asteroid found in eight years. Shepard was able to find AP 7 in the Sun's glare. The dark energy camera was used to find it. An object of this size could cause a mass extinction if it hits Earth. It is good news that we found it, but it is also frightening. There are more than one answer to that question.
There should be more of them if they are out there. According to NASA, the telescope will find tens of thousands of new Neos as small as 30 m. It will fulfill its secondary science objectives by detecting and cataloging about one million asteroids in the main belt, thousands of comets, and to identify NEOs that could be targeted for exploration.
There are other telescopes that are able to hunt asteroids. The Vera Rubin Observatory will have its first light sometime in the 20th century. The entire southern sky will be covered by the camera every three nights. A 2016 paper in the Astronomical Journal states that the VRO could detect over half of the population of 140 meters or greater.
The popular press has caught on to the fact that we are increasing our asteroid detection capabilities. There are a lot of headlines about asteroids. In the press, headlines cry wolf and invite us to click and get caught up in misinformation. The real threat is not the harmless asteroids that pass by so often. Those on a collision course are the real danger.
There will be plenty of advance warning when an asteroid hits Earth. That's the plan. We should have enough notice due to the efforts of the NEO Surveyor.
What do you think will happen then? Scientists are working on it and we don't know for certain.
Conferences are held to find threatening asteroids. The last planetary defence conference was held in 2021. April 23, 2023 is the next one.
Scientists are asked to respond to a fake asteroid detection scenario. An asteroid was found at the conference. The participants were told more about what would happen as the astronomer gathered more data.
The impact probability increases when the conference starts. The asteroid was 105 meters across and would hit an area near Germany, the Czech Republic, and Austria. What can be done to make things better?
It wasn't much. The attendees at the conference came up with Civil Defense and emergency preparation. We were only able to evacuate people and attempt to protect the most critical infrastructure. No one is satisfied with that.
On a collision course with our world, we can mount some defense against asteroids. We need to know where these asteroids are and when they'll hit Earth. They will handle that. What do we do when we get a call? The people should be evacuated and the pearls should be clutched. It would be a huge failure for all of us.
We need to know more about asteroids. We need to know more about their composition, types, and methods to defend ourselves. Hollywood and Russia may use massive explosives to protect Earth, but others think that is not a good idea. It might be cheaper and more reliable to defecate. It's likely safer.
DART was launched by NASA in November of 2011. The purpose of DART was to test the ability of asteroids to hit each other. It looked at how a spaceship could hit an asteroid. The small moon of Didymos was its target.
The DART probe crashed into Dimorphos. The moon hit Dimorphos in the opposite direction of its rotation. Didymos' trajectory was changed and some ejected debris was blasted into space.
NASA planned the impact so that multiple ground-based observatories would be able to observe it. The HERA is going to visit Didymos/ Dimorphos. The impact on the moon will be studied by HERA when it arrives in 2026.
We have samples of asteroids and comets and now we have sent a craft to hit them. The efforts teach us more about them and how to prepare for them. We have a long way to go What happens if we don't have enough time to prepare for and respond to the threat?
Philip Lubin is a professor at the University of California. Lubin is working on a project called PI-Terminal Defense for humanity. There is a possible response to an asteroid that comes for Earth on short notice. We might not have enough time to launch an impactor. We should have specialized spaceships that are ready to be launched when needed.
Lubin presented his idea for a planetary defence at the conference. "So far, humanity has been spared large-scale catastrophe as was visited upon our previous tenants, but counting upon being "lucky" is a poor strategy in the long term."
Lubin wants to launch a spaceship that will destroy a large asteroid. Smaller chunks would burn up in the atmosphere and be harmless. Some asteroids could cause serious damage if they hit the surface. There could be a way to avoid widespread destruction and extinction.
ThePI impactor has an array of rods that will penetrate the asteroid. The asteroid would be fractured by some of the rods. A cloud of debris is headed for Earth instead of a single piece of rock. It could be the difference between life and death.
There is a chance that the impactor could be on the surface of the moon. They are able to act quickly in scenarios where we don't have much time to prepare. They could act as backups in the event of a failure.
The NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts program gave Lubin's idea a Phase One award.
The risk of asteroid strikes will never be reduced. Most asteroids follow a predictable path. Sometimes a larger body can perturb a smaller one and send it on a collision course with Earth. Liberty is the price of eternal vigilance. We can't let the threat of an impact get us down.
It is very unlikely that we will live during the approach of a deadly asteroid. As the time span under consideration gets longer, the probability increases for humanity as a whole.
Nature is full of threats and many of humanity's worst problems are self-destructive. Big brains can be used to prepare for those threats. We can detect nature's asteroid threat, but we can also protect ourselves.
History will repeat itself and one will come for us.
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