W
William
Guest
It may hit Earth ... but don't worry, we've got a plan
RAYMOND HAINEY
A £150 MILLION space mission should be launched to deflect an asteroid which is set to pass dangerously close to Earth, experts warned yesterday.
The call for action to protect the world from Apophis - named after the Egyptian god of destruction - came from a coalition of astronauts, engineers and scientists with close links to US space agency NASA.
Scientists have estimated the asteroid has a one-in-45,000 chance of striking Earth on 13 April, 2036. Travelling at 28,000mph it could release 80,000 times the energy of the Hiroshima bomb.
The group believes the United Nations should assume responsibility for a space mission - using a vessel called a "gravity tractor" - to knock Apophis off course.
Experts says that the recent approval of a NASA mandate to upgrade its tracking of near-Earth asteroids is expected to uncover hundreds, if not thousands of threatening space rocks in the near future.
Rusty Schweickart, a former astronaut who orbited the moon in the 1969 Apollo 9 mission, said: "It's not just Apophis we're looking at.
"Every country is at risk and we need a set of general principles to deal with this issue."
Mr Schweickart, a member of the Association of Space Explorers, is planning to present an update to the UN Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space this week on plans to develop a global response to an asteroid threat.
Scientists believe that a gravity tractor - a spaceship which flies alongside the asteroid - is the best way to neutralise the threat of Apophis.
A gravity tractor spaceship exerts a slight pull on the targeted mass, slowly pulling it off course and potentially rendering it harmless to life on Earth.
Ed Lu, a veteran of the International Space Station, said that an asteroid the size of Apophis would take nearly a fortnight to deflect away from a collision course with the Earth.
The US is taking asteroid threat seriously, with a massive upgrading of its tracking of near-Earth asteroids.
The Association of Space Explorers, which also includes Russian cosmonauts, is to host a series of workshops this year to refine plans to avoid a potential disaster, then make a formal proposal to the UN in 2009.
Mr Schweickart said that the UN had to adopt a global plan for assessing asteroid threats and deciding when action would need to be taken to avert a massive rock on a collision course with the Earth. He added that launching an asteroid deflection system early to deal with Apophis would not only increase the chances of success, but need far less energy to put the asteroid on a course which will take it far away from Earth.
Typical stony-type asteroids generally burn up on entry to the atmosphere, but asteroids with a large iron content could survive entry and smash into the ground with devastating effect.
But Paul Slovic, president of the US-based Decision Research, which studies judgment, decision-making and risk assessment, said Apophis could destroy a major city or even a entire region.
The most severe asteroid hit in recent times was the Tunguska airburst explosion in Siberia in 1908. The asteroid exploded with the force of a ten-megaton nuclear bomb, flattening huge areas of forest.
Earth had a narrow escape in 1992, when the one to two-mile wide Toutatis asteroid passed within 2.2 million miles of the planet - very close in space terms. And they warned that if Toutatis had hit Earth, it would have had an impact equivalent to between 100 and 150 hydrogen bombs.
The explosion would have blotted out sunlight, caused rocketing global warming and killed off all plant life.
Scientists have calculated that if even if an asteroid misses Earth, if it passes close enough, the planet's gravitational pull could be enough to drag it on to a collision course.
In 2004, NASA issued its highest ever warning on the Torino threat scale for when it gave the MN4 asteroid a rating of four on a scale of one to ten. The previous highest intergalactic threat warning was just one on the Torino scale. However, it failed to strike the Earth.
Astronomers warned then that between now and 2079, there would be at least 38 potentially hazardous encounters with rogue asteroids.
It is thought that dinosaurs were wiped out 65 million years ago after an asteroid hit earth, creating a greenhouse effect which lasted 10,000 years.
It is estimated that asteroids larger than 800 metres wide strike earth about once every 500,000 years.
Major impacts, however, occur around once in a 1,000 years and the chance of dying due to an asteroid impact is estimated to be 20,000/1 - about the same as death from hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes and major floods.
Experts say that nuclear missiles could be used to blow up asteroid threats - but the weapons would have to be triggered some distance away to prevent the asteroid breaking up into smaller, but still dangerous, pieces.
Other suggestions - including using kinetic energy devices to pulverise asteroids and using lasers or solar sails to push threats off-course - have all been dismissed as ineffectual or requiring massive investment in new technology.
--
13 April, 2036...? Well that sucks, I was planning on getting ice cream that day
RAYMOND HAINEY
A £150 MILLION space mission should be launched to deflect an asteroid which is set to pass dangerously close to Earth, experts warned yesterday.
The call for action to protect the world from Apophis - named after the Egyptian god of destruction - came from a coalition of astronauts, engineers and scientists with close links to US space agency NASA.
Scientists have estimated the asteroid has a one-in-45,000 chance of striking Earth on 13 April, 2036. Travelling at 28,000mph it could release 80,000 times the energy of the Hiroshima bomb.
The group believes the United Nations should assume responsibility for a space mission - using a vessel called a "gravity tractor" - to knock Apophis off course.
Experts says that the recent approval of a NASA mandate to upgrade its tracking of near-Earth asteroids is expected to uncover hundreds, if not thousands of threatening space rocks in the near future.
Rusty Schweickart, a former astronaut who orbited the moon in the 1969 Apollo 9 mission, said: "It's not just Apophis we're looking at.
"Every country is at risk and we need a set of general principles to deal with this issue."
Mr Schweickart, a member of the Association of Space Explorers, is planning to present an update to the UN Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space this week on plans to develop a global response to an asteroid threat.
Scientists believe that a gravity tractor - a spaceship which flies alongside the asteroid - is the best way to neutralise the threat of Apophis.
A gravity tractor spaceship exerts a slight pull on the targeted mass, slowly pulling it off course and potentially rendering it harmless to life on Earth.
Ed Lu, a veteran of the International Space Station, said that an asteroid the size of Apophis would take nearly a fortnight to deflect away from a collision course with the Earth.
The US is taking asteroid threat seriously, with a massive upgrading of its tracking of near-Earth asteroids.
The Association of Space Explorers, which also includes Russian cosmonauts, is to host a series of workshops this year to refine plans to avoid a potential disaster, then make a formal proposal to the UN in 2009.
Mr Schweickart said that the UN had to adopt a global plan for assessing asteroid threats and deciding when action would need to be taken to avert a massive rock on a collision course with the Earth. He added that launching an asteroid deflection system early to deal with Apophis would not only increase the chances of success, but need far less energy to put the asteroid on a course which will take it far away from Earth.
Typical stony-type asteroids generally burn up on entry to the atmosphere, but asteroids with a large iron content could survive entry and smash into the ground with devastating effect.
But Paul Slovic, president of the US-based Decision Research, which studies judgment, decision-making and risk assessment, said Apophis could destroy a major city or even a entire region.
The most severe asteroid hit in recent times was the Tunguska airburst explosion in Siberia in 1908. The asteroid exploded with the force of a ten-megaton nuclear bomb, flattening huge areas of forest.
Earth had a narrow escape in 1992, when the one to two-mile wide Toutatis asteroid passed within 2.2 million miles of the planet - very close in space terms. And they warned that if Toutatis had hit Earth, it would have had an impact equivalent to between 100 and 150 hydrogen bombs.
The explosion would have blotted out sunlight, caused rocketing global warming and killed off all plant life.
Scientists have calculated that if even if an asteroid misses Earth, if it passes close enough, the planet's gravitational pull could be enough to drag it on to a collision course.
In 2004, NASA issued its highest ever warning on the Torino threat scale for when it gave the MN4 asteroid a rating of four on a scale of one to ten. The previous highest intergalactic threat warning was just one on the Torino scale. However, it failed to strike the Earth.
Astronomers warned then that between now and 2079, there would be at least 38 potentially hazardous encounters with rogue asteroids.
It is thought that dinosaurs were wiped out 65 million years ago after an asteroid hit earth, creating a greenhouse effect which lasted 10,000 years.
It is estimated that asteroids larger than 800 metres wide strike earth about once every 500,000 years.
Major impacts, however, occur around once in a 1,000 years and the chance of dying due to an asteroid impact is estimated to be 20,000/1 - about the same as death from hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes and major floods.
Experts say that nuclear missiles could be used to blow up asteroid threats - but the weapons would have to be triggered some distance away to prevent the asteroid breaking up into smaller, but still dangerous, pieces.
Other suggestions - including using kinetic energy devices to pulverise asteroids and using lasers or solar sails to push threats off-course - have all been dismissed as ineffectual or requiring massive investment in new technology.
--
13 April, 2036...? Well that sucks, I was planning on getting ice cream that day