One of the target asteroids is Bennu. According to Space.com, Bennu is one of the most dangerous asteroids for Earth. Because Bennu is one of the very large asteroids. Its weight alone reaches 85.5 million tons. The size alone mentioned by Space.com exceeds the Empire State Building.
If managed to hit Earth, then the impact generated by Bennu is estimated at 1,200 megatons, equivalent to 80,000 times greater than the nuclear explosion that occurred in Hiroshima in 1945. For an illustration Live Science says that the meteor that hit Earth and wiped out the dinosaur population had an impact of 100 million megatons.
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Chinese scientists at China’s National Space Science Center predict that China’s Long March 5 rocket will be able to prevent the collision from happening. As many as 23 rockets according to them will be able to push and divert Bennu’s travel route from a fatal collision to Earth.
“The asteroid impact poses a grave threat to all life on Earth,” Mingtao Li, a space science analyst with the National Space Science Center in Beijing and lead author of the new study, wrote in the paper. “Bending the asteroid on its impact trajectory is critical to reducing this threat.”
This plan, according to him, is more realistic than other methods that are classified as frontal, namely blowing up an asteroid with a nuclear. This theory has emerged through the film Armageddon, starring Bruce Willis. In fact, according to them, detonating a nuclear asteroid will not solve the problem because the asteroid will become many pieces with the same route. So the potential for a collision with Earth will still occur.
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This Chinese plan has actually been pursued by NASA through a program called Hypervelocity Asteroid Mitigation Mission for Emergency Response (HAMMER). Unlike China, NASA is trying to prevent a collision by sending a fleet of 9-meter-tall spacecraft called the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART).
The plane will later hit the asteroid until it goes off course. NASA simulations show that 34-53 hits from the DART spacecraft, will be needed to shift the asteroid.
To prove the effectiveness of the theory, NASA in collaboration with ESA will conduct an experiment on November 24. In the experiment, a spacecraft will be sent to destroy the twin asteroid Didymos, which is about to hit Earth.
(wsb)
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