Scientists launch plan to stop asteroid from hitting Earth

Imagine if scientists found out that a massive asteroid was on a collision course with Earth and would strike somewhere near Los Angeles by September 2020. What could humanity do? Not much. At least, that was the result of a daylong tabletop exercise coordinated by NASA and federal emergency officials. In their hypothetical scenario, the space agency concluded the 100-metre space rock was approaching too quickly to mount a deflection mission. This was a purely fictional exercise. The chance of an impact big enough to destroy our planet is even smaller. Earth has suffered just one mass extinction-inducing impact that we know of in its 4.6 billion-year history. That asteroid didn’t end life entirely.

Still, many researchers don’t want to simply wait around to see what happens. Last week, more than 100 planetary scientists, physicists and engineers published an open letter supporting a joint European Space Agency and NASA mission to survey a near-Earth asteroid and try to deflect it.

“Unlike other natural disasters, this is one we know how to predict and potentially prevent with early discovery,” the letter reads. “As such, it is crucial to our knowledge and understanding of asteroids to determine whether a kinetic impactor is able to deflect the orbit of such a small body, in case Earth is threatened. This is what AIDA (an Asteroid Impact and Deflection Assessment mission) will help us assess.”

In early December, ESA’s council of ministers

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will meet to decide on funding for the first half of the AIDA mission.

ESA’s half of the joint project with NASA is called the Asteroid Impact Mission (AIM). It would launch a spacecraft in 2020 to the Didymos asteroid and its ‘moonlet’ Didymoon. The pair of space rocks is expected to pass within 10 million miles of Earth around 2022.

The smaller of the two bodies — Didymoon — is AIM’s target. The spacecraft would release a probe to land on the rock’s surface and two satellites to orbit around it.

Four months later, a NASA spacecraft would complete the second part of the mission. With the ESA satellites watching, the spacecraft is scheduled to slam into Didymoon to try to knock it off course.