A group of experts attended a week-long exercise led by NASA in which they faced a hypothetical scenario: An asteroid 56 million kilometers away was approaching the planet and could impact in six months.
What has happened in this simulation?
Doomsday
The fictional asteroid in the simulation was called 2021PDC. In NASA's scenario, it was first "detected" on April 19, at which time it was thought to have a 5 percent chance of hitting our planet on October 20. six months after the date of its discovery.
But Day 2 of the exercise fast-forwarded to May 2, when new calculations of the impact trajectory showed that 2021PDC would almost certainly hit Europe or North Africa.
Participants in the simulation considered several missions to try to destroy the asteroid or divert it from its path.
With each passing day during the exercise, participants learned more about the asteroid's size, trajectory, and impact potential. They also had to cooperate and use their technological knowledge to see if anything could be done to stop the space rock.
They concluded that such missions could not take off in the short period of time before the asteroid impact. They also considered trying to blow up or destroy the asteroid with a nuclear explosive device, without success. That is, we could not save ourselves.
The group thus determined that none of the existing technologies on Earth could prevent the hypothetical asteroid from hitting given the six-month simulation timeframe. In this alternate reality, the asteroid crashed into Eastern Europe.
To our knowledge, no asteroid currently poses a threat to Earth in this way. But it is estimated that two-thirds of asteroids 140 meters in size or larger, large enough to wreak considerable havoc, remain undiscovered. That is why NASA and other agencies are trying to prepare for such a situation.
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The news
This simulation suggests what would happen in the hypothetical case if we detected an asteroid heading towards Earth
was originally published in
Xataka Science
by
Sergio Parra
.