“A giant asteroid is about to pass Earth at close range”
An excited festive atmosphere is created in anticipation of a splendid space show that will unfold as meteor showers pass by all over the world. A report warning of a meteorite collision is issued from the space station Mir, which was tracking the orbit of an asteroid group, but it is dismissed as an unlikely event on Earth. The force of meteorite fragments in the blind spot behind the asteroid is 10 times that of a nuclear bomb. Destroying the space station and eventually collapsing buildings and roads by asteroids heading for Earth, a catastrophe unfolds.
Planet, produced by the Russian Federation, is a science fiction (SF) disaster film with the theme of an asteroid impact. The story unfolds between the destroyed space station and the devastated earth after the fall of the meteorite. All over the world, including Australia, New Zealand, Okinawa, Primorskiy, and Korea, suffered great damage from meteorites, and depicted urban infrastructures collapsing and turning into ruins in a realistic way.
An asteroid is a celestial body that orbits the sun smaller than a planet orbiting inside the orbit of Jupiter. In contents such as movies, novels, cartoons, and games set in the universe, it is a regular material that appears as a threat that can destroy the earth and a pioneering target rich in rare resources. A meteorite is a generic term for rocks that fall to the Earth’s surface from space, including asteroids.
An asteroid impact is a real threat, not just science fiction. On June 30, 1908, a 40 to 50 m class asteroid fell in the Tungska region of Russia, knocking down 80 million trees within a distance of 25 km and devastating Siberian forests. In order to raise awareness about the risk of asteroid impact and to respond internationally, the United Nations (UN) designated this day in 2016 as ‘World Asteroid Day’.
Relatively recently, in 2019, an asteroid with a diameter of 57 to 130 m, named ‘Asteroid 2019 OK’, narrowly missed the Earth at 24 km per second. At that time, the distance the asteroid passed was only 1/5 of the distance between the Earth and the Moon. The existence of Asteroid 2019 OK was only noticed on Earth a few hours prior to the nearest point in time.
Like the asteroids in the movie Planet, when an asteroid with a diameter of more than 100m collides with the Earth, a city is razed to the ground. If the diameter exceeds 1 km, the Earth’s ecosystem cannot recover. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is monitoring about 2,300 ‘potentially dangerous asteroids (near-Earth asteroids)’ with an orbit within 750 km from the Earth and a size of more than 140 m.
A defensive strategy to protect Earth from asteroids is also being envisioned. Last year, the United States conducted an experiment to change the trajectory by crashing a spacecraft into an asteroid. By using the spacecraft as a kinetic impactor and accurately colliding with an asteroid with a diameter of 160 m, it is expected to shorten the asteroid’s orbital period by about 1%. Directly blowing up an asteroid with a nuclear bomb in outer space is also being discussed, as in Michael Bay’s 1998 film Armageddon.
The scientific community considers the possibility of an asteroid larger than 140 m colliding with the Earth within 100 years as low. However, the universe is still an unknown territory for mankind. Efforts to prepare for unexpected cosmic threats must continue.
Reporter Jeongeun Park jepark@etnews.com
