NASA and planetary defense

   

NASA and planetary defense

"NASA’s DART spacecraft is due to collide with the smaller body of the Didymos binary asteroid system in October 2022."

"ESA’s Hera mission will survey ‘Didymoon’ post-impact and assess how its orbit has been changed by the collision, to turn this one-off experiment into a workable planetary defense technique."

Credit: ESA–ScienceOffice.org"  (ScitechDaily/We Asked a NASA Expert: Is NASA Really Crashing a Spacecraft Into an Asteroid?)

NASA and planetary defense

NASA DART mission will impact the space probe to an asteroid in October 2022. Or more accurately saying, asteroid Didymos binary asteroid. One of the things that makes asteroid 65803 Didymos interesting is that the asteroid has its moon. And when the DART impacts the asteroid. ESA:s "Hera" probe will observe the debris from the surface asteroid's surface. That data is important for creating a defense against asteroids. 

The mission of that spacecraft is to research the possibility to turn asteroids away from their course without nuclear detonation. The thing is that the USA and other nations are spending billions on their defense budgets. 

But nobody has ever made anything against natural threats like small asteroids. There are billions of asteroids in the solar system. And the biggest extinctions on Earth are the reason for cosmic impacts. Most of those asteroids are small. Their size is about 10-200 meters. And they can come near Eath quite suddenly. 

The warning against those small asteroids would get maybe in a couple of days before impact. Those small asteroids cause local threats. 

We are lucky. The asteroid impact wiped out dinosaurs. And that open road to mammals and finally humans. But there are no confirmed large-scale asteroid impacts after the extinction of dinosaurs. 

There is some suspicion that ice ages began when asteroids impacted oceans. And then that impact caused nuclear winter. If an asteroid drops to sea that thing can cause that the level of sunlight on Earth will decrease. 

There are no confirmed asteroid impacts in city areas. If the impact of 200 meters asteroid would happen before spaceflights. There is nothing that could deny that thing. 

If that kind of asteroid drops to a city area the destruction is similar to a nuclear blast. Most of the asteroids would drop to seas causing tsunamis. The reason for that is. That most of our planet is covered by water. The possibility that the object from the solar system impacts some area is always the same. 

But the larger asteroids which size is more than a kilometer can cause more damage. If the large asteroid which size is about 15 kilometers comes on Earth. The system detects that object immediately. And then there is no way what we can do. There is the possibility to use nuclear detonators to turn objects away from their course. The nuclear detonator vaporizes the surface of that dwarf planet. But otherwise, people can sit and wait for the impact. 

Things like rogue planets are opening our eyes that there are also other kinds of threats than some small asteroids. The visit of Oumuamua is proven that the asteroids can come outside the solar system. 

And if the 100-1000 meters asteroid impacts another asteroid like Ceres that thing can act like a billiard ball. The Oumuamua-size (1000X250m) object can push another asteroid from its trajectories. 

Defense against small-size objects is quite easy. Shooting them with kinetic ammunition or just pushing them away by docking rocket engines to them is enough. But if those asteroids are falling on Earth there is always the possibility, that it drops to city areas. 

Maybe shooting it to pieces would seem very shocking. And maybe. Some satellites will break because of that debris. But in those cases, the destruction on Earth would be local but total. If people just sit and look at the incoming object that can destroy one city. If somebody shoots those objects they would turn smaller. And smaller pieces cause smaller destruction. 

But another thing is that large objects can cause global destruction. If things like 100 kilometers object are closing Earth. That means there is no shield. If an object which diameter is 1000 kilometers hits Earth we can say goodbye to the human race. 

https://www.esa.int/Safety_Security/Hera

https://www.heramission.space/

https://scitechdaily.com/we-asked-a-nasa-expert-is-nasa-really-crashing-a-spacecraft-into-an-asteroid-video/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/65803_Didymos

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CA%BBOumuamua

Image: https://scitechdaily.com/we-asked-a-nasa-expert-is-nasa-really-crashing-a-spacecraft-into-an-a

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