Earth cannot be saved from a killer asteroid

NASA presented a report on the results of a recent simulation of the impact of a potential killer asteroid with Earth. The report states that it is not yet possible to prevent such a space rock from falling to Earth. And this is due to both the technical aspects and the enormous impact of disinformation on the minds of the population, he writes Futurism.

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According to Emma Rainey of Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory, modeling of planetary defense in the event of a dangerous asteroid approaching Earth has shown that humanity is completely unprepared for such a threat and will not be able to prevent a catastrophe. .

The main plot of the NASA simulation was that an asteroid with a diameter of 70 meters entered the Earth’s atmosphere at great speed. It fell 15 km from the imaginary city and, following the fall, there was an explosion with the release of energy equivalent to 10 megatons of TNT. The city itself and its surroundings were completely destroyed and tens of thousands of people died.

The main goal of the new planetary defense exercises that created this simulation was to show how scientists and the government would act in this case from the moment the astroid was discovered, until the fall and after. Furthermore, the exercises were supposed to show the possible reaction of the population to the terrible news.

The main developments of the simulation began with the discovery of a 70-meter asteroid, codenamed TTX22. He flew to Earth with great speed. It turned out that by the time it was spotted, it was already too late to put together a mission to study it, divert its trajectory, or destroy it. About 12 vehicles would be needed to change the course of this space rock, the same as DART (which successfully changed the course of the asteroid Dimorph in September of this year). But the creation of only one such apparatus took 5 years. And NASA has no missiles in its arsenal that could hit the asteroid.

The simulation also showed that the asteroid cannot be destroyed by a nuclear warhead missile, because this is very risky from the point of view of interstate relations. Moreover, such an explosion may not completely destroy the asteroid, and its fragments will still fall to Earth. Another danger is the spread of a huge amount of radiation in the upper atmosphere.

But if it is impossible to prevent a collision with an asteroid, then it is necessary to mitigate the consequences of this catastrophe. Then the scientists decided and included in the simulation the public reaction to this event and the actions of the authorities to inform the population.

As it turned out, the misinformation, the false rumors, the conspiracy theories that are spreading among the people of the United States have had a detrimental effect. The simulations showed that the fake news in the media and the opinions of various experts who deny the true fall of the asteroid to Earth played a role in this. Therefore, the efforts of the government and other organizations have been reduced to almost zero. As the simulation shows after the authorities’ request to evacuate the city and its surroundings, where the strike would be the epicenter, 20% of the inhabitants simply did not believe it and, as a result, about 200,000 people died.

In general, simulations have shown that the United States lacks the ability to intercept small, fast-moving asteroids, and the ability to detect them early is very limited. Scientists also believe that the government and NASA must make greater efforts to form the right public opinion regarding such a disaster.

Although humanity is now more prepared than ever for a potential asteroid impact. And this is due to the very impact of the DART spacecraft, mentioned above, which allowed the near-Earth asteroid to be deflected from its path, as already written in detail Focus.

Research is currently underway on near-Earth asteroids that pose a danger to our planet. And NASA recently received $ 55 million more than the US Congress requested for planetary defense research.

As already written Focusscientists have recently discovered an asteroid that could destroy the earth. And this space rock has a diameter of 1.5 km.

Also Focus wrote about an asteroid half the size of the previous one, but also recently discoveredand managed to fly over the Earth at a very close range in early November.