We’d be powerless to stop asteroid obliterating planet, warns Nasa
IT IS a scene straight out of a blockbuster disaster film.
An asteroid hurtles towards the Earth but is knocked off course by missiles or vaporised by lasers, saving the planet from obliteration.
But a Nasa-run simulation has revealed that experts would not be able to save us if a real asteroid is heading our way.
In a week-long exercise, scientists from the US and European space agencies were told a fictional asteroid, 2021PDC, had been spotted 35 million miles away and could hit Earth within six months.
With each passing day, the experts learned more about the imagined asteroid’s size, trajectory and the chance of impact – as they would in real life.
Using existing technology, they had to work out if anything could be done to stop the collision. But in the simulation, there was nothing the scientists could do within six months. They said a ‘nuclear explosive device’ might be able to knock the rock off course – but this was uncertain.
Nasa’s Lindley Johnson said: ‘These exercises ultimately help the planetary-defence community communicate with each other and with our governments to ensure we are all coordinated should a potential impact threat be identified in the future.’
The teams ultimately concluded that the development of early rapid response spacecraft is a priority.
There are no known asteroids that pose a threat to Earth. But two-thirds of space rocks 450ft (140m) wide and larger are thought to remain undiscovered.