{"id":46001,"date":"2019-05-08T05:11:19","date_gmt":"2019-05-08T10:11:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=46001"},"modified":"2019-05-19T08:43:44","modified_gmt":"2019-05-19T13:43:44","slug":"from-nukes-to-gravity-tractors-how-well-prepared-is-earth-for-an-impending-asteroid-strike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=46001","title":{"rendered":"From Nukes To &#8216;Gravity Tractors&#8217; &#8211; How Well Prepared Is Earth For An Impending Asteroid Strike?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/news\/2019-05-07\/nukes-gravity-tractors-how-well-prepared-earth-impending-asteroid-strike\">From Nukes To &#8216;Gravity Tractors&#8217; &#8211; How Well Prepared Is Earth For An Impending Asteroid Strike?<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>NASA launches an asteroid strike simulation this week<\/strong>, but what would happen if a devastating asteroid was coming our way today?&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.rt.com\/news\/458196-asteroid-earth-tools-save-earth\/\">RT asks&nbsp;<\/a>an expert about&nbsp;<strong>the tools available, and how long it will be until we\u2019re fully prepared.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/zh-prod-1cc738ca-7d3b-4a72-b792-20bd8d8fa069.storage.googleapis.com\/s3fs-public\/inline-images\/5ccacfc5dda4c897448b4660.jpg\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/s3\/files\/inline-images\/5ccacfc5dda4c897448b4660.jpg?itok=4FhhiRPq\"><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">While hundreds of small asteroids and meteorites have hit Earth, big objects, like the 55 foot one that exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia in 2013 only occur around twice a century,&nbsp;<strong>and larger (dinosaur-destroying) ones are even less common<\/strong>. However, NASA warns that&nbsp;<em>\u201cgiven the current incompleteness of the NEO [Near Earth Object] catalogue, an unpredicted impact could occur at any time.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure><iframe allowfullscreen=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/9PVgFLYT7uE\"><\/iframe><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure><iframe allowfullscreen=\"\" width=\"100%\" height=\"100%\"><\/iframe><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At the start of 2019, NASA&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/planetarydefense\/faq\">reported<\/a>&nbsp;there were 19,000 known near-Earth asteroids, with an average of 30 new ones found each week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Detlef Koschny, co-manager of the Space Situational Awareness (SSA)-NEO Segment of the European Space Agency, told RT that&nbsp;<strong>it\u2019s not the large NEOs that we need to worry about, though, but the smaller ones, as scientists are only aware of&nbsp;<em>\u201cone percent or less\u201d<\/em>&nbsp;of them and&nbsp;<em>\u201cthey could still damage a city or region.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ideally, scientists hope to have several years\u2019 warning of an approaching NEO of 100 meters or more, but when it comes to smaller ones, it is&nbsp;<em>\u201cmore difficult to see them early on,\u201d<\/em>&nbsp;Koschny explains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Offensive defense<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><em>\u201cAnything larger than 50 meters we\u2019d try to deflect,\u201d<\/em>&nbsp;<\/strong>Koschny said, pointing to NASA\u2019s 2022 Double Asteroid Redirection Test (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/planetarydefense\/dart\">DART<\/a>), which aims to intercept an asteroid\u2019s moonlet when it gets within 11 million kilometers of Earth. The hope is that it can&nbsp;<em>\u201cchange the speed of an asteroid via a kinetic impact,\u201d<\/em>&nbsp;he explained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Unfortunately, deflection methods require a few years of preparation, and the correct spacecraft would need to be built.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&nbsp;\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From Nukes To &#8216;Gravity Tractors&#8217; &#8211; How Well Prepared Is Earth For An Impending Asteroid Strike? NASA launches an asteroid strike simulation this week, but what would happen if a devastating asteroid was coming our way today?&nbsp;RT asks&nbsp;an expert about&nbsp;the tools available, and how long it will be until we\u2019re fully prepared. While hundreds of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,7],"tags":[25830,25832,4318],"class_list":["post-46001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","category-survival-2","tag-asteroid-strike","tag-near-earth-object","tag-zerohedge"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46001"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46001\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46002,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46001\/revisions\/46002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}