Is humanity prepared to face an asteroid that has a 72% chance of hitting Earth in 14 years?
Scientists and experts say there's still work to be done.
When NASA presented a hypothetical scenario prepared by the Planetary Defense Coordination Office to a group of about 100 government representatives, they found that their plan for dealing with an asteroid speeding toward Earth had several “high-level gaps,” according to a NASA slide presentation. Space officials have “limited readiness to quickly execute necessary space missions,” and methods for keeping the public informed about the impending disaster are not fully developed.
Among participants from federal agencies like the State Department and international entities like the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs, 33% said humanity is not ready to launch space missions to prevent an asteroid impact on the planet, and 19% said “reconnaissance missions” are not ready.
Kelly Fast, NASA's acting planetary defense officer, said the exercise helped government agencies plan how they will work together to deal with future asteroid strikes.
“If we ever face a situation like this, it wouldn't be the first time someone would be talking about how to treat it,” he said.
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NASA conducts fifth test to assess asteroid readiness
The exercise, designed to test the government's readiness for an asteroid headed toward Earth, was conducted by NASA and the Federal Emergency Management Agency at an April meeting at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, according to a news release. It was the fifth test aimed at finding out whether officials are prepared to defend Earth from space. This year's exercise was the first to involve “international partners on planetary defense.”
In a hypothetical scenario, an asteroid hits Earth in 2038. The collision has a 47% chance of affecting more than 1,000 people, and an 8% chance of affecting more than one million people. It could affect many cities in the US, Europe and Africa, including Washington, Dallas, Madrid and Algiers.
According to the news release, participants in this scenario were not told “the size, composition, and long-term trajectory of the asteroid.” Further observations of the asteroid would also hypothetically have to be delayed by at least seven months because the asteroid would pass behind the sun — “a significant loss of time.”
Fast said agencies will still have to work efficiently to respond to an approaching asteroid, despite years of preparation. “When you talk about planning a mission, any kind of spacecraft mission, it doesn't happen in an instant,” he said.
“Although 14 years seems like a long time, it really isn't that long when you think about developing a mission,” Fast said.
Space officials have only one tried and tested way to stop an asteroid headed toward Earth — “kinetic impact,” or crashing a spacecraft into an asteroid to change its trajectory. In 2022, NASA plans to crash a spacecraft into Dimorphos, a tiny “moon” orbiting the asteroid Didymos about 6.8 million miles from Earth, successfully shortening the moon's orbit by 32 minutes, according to NASA.
Scientists will need to design space missions to suit a particular asteroid collision scenario, Fast said.
“It all depends on the asteroid,” he said. “A single kinetic impactor might work for a small asteroid, but not for a very large one.”
Some participants also doubted there would be enough federal funding to tackle the threat, according to the presentation. It said the decision-making process was “unclear.”
Evaluators concluded that officials would have limited ability to gather more information about an incoming asteroid by flying a spacecraft near it.
The presentation also warned that coordinating the release of information to the public about the asteroid flying toward the planet would pose problems. “Misinformation and disinformation will have to be tackled,” it wrote.
Another anonymous participant said, “It’s important to build trust at the start of this event, and that means having conversations early — possibly even earlier than scientists and advocates are comfortable with.”
Fast said it will be important to “translate the information into something that is understandable to the public, and not overly technical and jargon-laden.”
The latest exercise, which used data from the trial, recommended further testing on the new technology
Fast said people should feel reassured that scientists and agencies are coming together to develop strategies to deal with the unlikely event of an asteroid collision.
The scenario was “an opportunity to explore these possibilities and our own readiness, and identify how we can do better in the future.”
“It's actually a good thing to have a conversation about this topic,” he said.