In 1998, Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck and other brave souls blasted into space and used oil drilling equipment to blow up an asteroid barreling towards Earth.
That same year, Elijah Wood discovered another asteroid bound for our planet. Fortunately, Robert Duvall blew that one up.
We’re talking about sci-fi movies, of course, but asteroids are a real threat. Thankfully, NASA has plans (not involving movie stars) for dealing with them.
Over the summer, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy released an 18-page report titled the “National Near-Earth Object Preparedness Strategy and Action Plan” that outlined steps to identify and deflect asteroids, as well as how to react should one hit.
Currently, NASA’s plans for warding off asteroids center on smashing spacecrafts into asteroids at high speed. The goal isn’t to destroy the asteroid, but simply to redirect it. If an asteroid’s course can be changed even a tiny bit, it could cause it to harmlessly shoot past Earth.
The United States isn’t alone in defending Earth against asteroids. China has announced plans to use the moon as a planetary defense platform. The Chinese plan would involve installing telescopes on the Moon’s North and South Pole, along with kinetic weapons. The prospect of placing weapons on the moon, however, has drawn criticism.
Asteroids can travel over 15 miles per second (54,000 miles per hour). An asteroid just 500 feet in diameter could destroy a large city. An asteroid a quarter of a mile in diameter could cause mass extinctions. NASA, among other organizations, already scans for asteroids. However, experts estimate that only about 40 percent of larger asteroids have been mapped. Many smaller asteroids also haven’t been mapped, but don’t pose as grave a threat.
Fortunately, FEMA’s National Response Coordination Branch has labeled the likelihood of a serious asteroid impact as unlikely, but does note that such an impact would be of high consequence.
Image by A Owen
