In 2029, NASA predicts that the 1,000-foot-wide Apophis asteroid will pass within 18,500 miles of our planet, or just one-tenth the distance from Earth to moon. This is uncomfortably close.
While scientists believe that the space rock will actually miss the planet, there’s no guarantee that it will miss again once it returns. This is why on Asteroid Day, they are drawing attention to possibilities of other near-Earth objects (NEO) striking home.
Asteroid Day In Focus
Across 190 countries, over 700 events will take place for this year’s Asteroid Day on June 30, Friday. Since 2015, this annual event commemorates the so-called Tunguska event back on June 30, 1908, when a space rock measuring around 130 feet wide exploded in Siberia and ruined 800 square miles of forest.
Scientists are raising awareness through events such as the 24-hour live Asteroid Day webcast to be hosted by University of Manchester professor and TV host Brian Cox, Space.com reported. It will include features from NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), as well as appearances from astronauts and other guests.
Other Asteroid Day events are ongoing at different museums, science centers, schools, and libraries around the United States, including at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Most events are free and can be attended by children and adults alike.
NASA Stake In Asteroid Science
NASA remains confident that it has discovered around 90 percent of NEO that are around 0.6 miles (1 kilometer) or larger in diameter. These are defined as being within 1.3 astronomical units (AU) of the sun, or around 120 million miles.
Bigger space rocks, of course, imply greater danger. An asteroid of Apophis’ size, Inverse noted, would pack the power of 500 million tons of TNT with its 700 to 1,000 feet in diameter. In comparison, the atomic bomb dropped by the United States on Hiroshima in 1945 was 16,000 tons of TNT in power.
But regardless of how low the probability of a killer asteroid striking the planet is, U.S. authorities aren’t taking these rocks lightly.
Last year, NASA and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) conducted an asteroid impact exercise, while in 2015 the U.S. Air Force started building a space radar system dubbed “Space Fence” with Lockheed Martin in the Marshall Islands. Once it’s online in 2018, it will focus on the tens of thousands of space rocks and debris orbiting and threatening Earth.
NASA’s special interest in asteroid science takes the form of the Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) mission. Launched on Sept. 8 last year, the spacecraft is expected to arrive at asteroid Bennu in 2018, scouring its surface and collecting samples for scientists to probe.
The Next Big Impact
The biggest asteroid impacts occur once every 100 million years, with insight that the next one could very well catalyze the end of human civilization. Tunguska-sized events, on the other hand, happen every 300 years on average.
The worry is an asteroid impact on highly populous regions of the world.
"Imagine that this type of asteroid would fall in a very populated area like ... Paris or Germany, I mean this is something that would be really, really a catastrophe," said Nicolas Bobrinsky, program manager of ESA’s asteroid-surveying Space Situational Awareness project.
As while experts have so far listed more than 90 percent of asteroids in the dinosaur-killing range and determined that none poses an urgent threat, nobody wants to be caught unaware as far as asteroid strikes are concerned.
