You might have heard that last workweek , June 30 , wasAsteroid Day . Ultimately born out of a collaboration between astrophysicist Brian May and film maker Grigorij Richters , the military campaign aimed to kick - start a planetary movement calling for greater detection and charting of asteroids in our solar system .
More than 100 events took place all over the world throughout the day , encouraging scientists , the populace and governments to unite and raise cognisance of these cosmic objects – which , as we all know from the dinosaurs , hold the electric potential to end lifespan as we screw it on our home major planet .
While the threat has n’t exchange , such ruinous consequence are super rarefied and in all probability wo n’t fall out in our lifetimes . So what ’s changed ? Why the resurgence of interest ? Should we really be disquieted about a glob of quad sway dash into Earth ’s aerofoil ? Keen to happen out more , IFLScience attended one of the premier Asteroid Day events , and had the opportunity to cut into into the minds of those behind the crusade .
fit in to the expert , the risk of a cataclysmic asteroid attain Earth in your life is rough in the same ballpark as you being involved in a black car accident on a given day . Not massive , but not insignificant either . “ The receive wisdom is that we are mindful of about one - one-hundredth of the objects that could hit us , ” May severalise IFLScience .
This is where the100X Declarationcomes in . consort to Alan Fitzsimmons , an astronomer at Queen ’s University ’s Belfast Astrophysics Research Center , we have a catalog of around 12,000 asteroids that we know about , but scientists want to be able-bodied to expand this by at least 100 time by increasing search endeavour . But even this falls way brusque of the jillion of potentially harmful asteroid , or Near Earth Objects ( NEOs ) , estimated to be out there . So how do we lie with there are so many zooming around if we have n’t find them yet ?
“ Well , strangely enough , we do know how many are out there , ” Fitzsimmons explain to IFLScience . “ There are a number of way to calculate that [ … ] and when we do these calculations , we in the main find the same numbers whichever way we do the sums . ” For example , scientists calculated that there are approximately 1,000 NEOs greater than a kilometre full . “ And in fact so far , we ’ve detect about 900 of them , so we ’ve really receive about 90 % of these objects , ” he added .
But as soon as you start to go littler , the build set about to billow . “ It ’s like pebble on a beach , ” said Fitzsimmons . “ For every boulder , you ’ve puzzle quite a few large Stone , and masses of shingle . It ’s the same with asteroid . ” So while there might only be 1,000 objects larger than a kilometre , if we go down to the size of the meteorite that burst forth over Russia in 2012 , which was a relatively tiny 20 meter ( 66 foot ) across , we ’re talking of million . And even that wield to injure more than 1,000 people . Imagine if it chance over , say , London or New York ? “ Asteroids do n’t single out , ” Richard Crowther , a professor of astronautics , reminds us .
So , we ’re realizing the threat , and we have the means to meliorate our asteroid database . Knowledge is all well and good , but what can we do if a threat appears , whether that is one , 10 or 50 years down the rail line ?
If an asteroid was to hit tomorrow , there ’s not much we could do . All we have at our electric pig is what ’s euphemistically called “ polite defense , ” or in other language , atomic bombs . In the howling scheme of thing , this is n’t the great idea it might at first seem . What you end up doing is turning one predictable bullet into a random shotgun atomizer . “ All we can do is figure out exactly where it ’s snuff it to strike , [ and ] get some mind of the effect of that hit , ” explained Fitzsimmons .
There are other options in development , though , Asteroid Day science advisor Debbie Lewis explains . TheNEOShieldproject , for example , is working on two different programme . The first is what ’s called a “ kinetic impactor , ” which is as complicated as slamming it with multiple unmanned spacecrafts until it ’s been knocked off path , though the mathematics are slightly more delicate than that . The second , the " gravity tractor , " is an idea first advise by two astronauts and bank on the minuscule gravitational pull of a monumental spacecraft to ever - so - slightly modify the asteroid ’s track , effectively drag it away from us .
The gravity tractor . Airbus Defence and Space .
But it ’s not all about the spoiled casing scenario ; impacts from smaller objects are more common than big I that would justify such method . And for these , we should be able to prepare – word of advice , inform and propose communities of the best actions to take , while also empowering mass to make a decision based on the entropy they are give about the situation . In scant , asteroid shock are n’t inevitably a day of reckoning .
Asteroid Day may be over , but our work is not . According to the experts , we need leadership , we need money , and we need voice to keep this ball pealing . The threat is not conk to go aside ; it is very genuine . But it is also a hazard that we can augur and do something about , so now is the time for the cosmos to come together and act .
Center mental image mention : NASA / JPL - Caltech
