Modern research has been published detailing how even current engineering might one solar day economize our planet from a devastating hit with asteroid Bennu , one of the potentially grievous near - ground object .
Asteroid Bennu is now mostly know for having been visited by NASA ’s OSIRIS - REx – the spacecraft is slowlycoming back to Earthwith a precioussample of materialfrom it . But there ’s another pertain fact about Bennu : the asteroid has a one - in-2,700 chance of hitting us on September 25 , 2135 .
On that Sunday morning , Bennu will top Earth five times near than the Moon , based on current estimates . The doubt is still wide enough that it might hit our planet or miss it , but it remains come to . Bennu is over 500 metre ( 1,640 foot ) across , and an impact would release 1,200 megaton of zip . That ’s 24 times the yield of theTsar Bomba , the most muscular nuclear weapon ever build up and test .
But care not ! Even if we discover that the encroachment is give out to chance , it does n’t stand for it ’s inevitable . Researchers from the US have antecedently released a design show an impactor calledHAMMERdesigned to ward off the dangerous infinite rock . Now , Taiwanese researchers have unfreeze their own program , that also relies on subsist technology .
The work , published in the journalIcarus , focuses on the kinetic impactor overture to stave off an asteroid . A ballistic capsule is go down onto the asteroid , giving it a little nudge . With enough clip and enough impacts , you may shift the asteroid enough to avoid Earth completely .
The proposed system is forebode the Assembled Kinetic Impactor ( AKI ) because alternatively of own the impactor separating from the Eruca sativa when it bugger off to leave Earth ’s orbit , the Eruca sativa total along for the drive , adding mess to the impact . Using the technical information of the Long March 5 ( CZ-5 ) launching vehicle , Bennu ’s flight could be parry by 1.4 Earth ’s radius ( 8,900 km/5,550 Admiralty mile ) with 23 successful impacts of such rockets .
With just a 10 - year trail - up sentence , this would be enough to change the asteroid ’s orbit and save Earth – and you would n’t need a atomic weapon to accomplish that . The Formosan access is a short more effective in terminus of launches compared to HAMMER . Back in 2018 , the squad estimated that it would take between 34 and 53 HAMMER impacts to shift Bennu with a 10 - yr lede before impact .
While Bennu is currently not a threat , there are other body that might be . With a 10 - year lead - up time , a individual AKI could deviate a 140 - beat - diameter ( 459 foot ) asteroid by more than one Earth radius . let something like this quick could be a life - recoverer .
