Featured Image Credit: Tobias Roetsch/Future Publishing via Getty Images
Topics: NASA, Space, James Webb Space Telescope, Science
Emma Rosemurgey
Topics: NASA, Space, James Webb Space Telescope, Science
NASA could soon trial a new defence strategy to prevent a giant asteroid hurtling towards the Moon and posing a huge risk to astronauts.
It comes after NASA intentionally used a spacecraft to bump into an asteroid that was heading towards Earth in 2022 in a test dubbed the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART for short.
Although small in size, the asteroid was travelling at 14,000 mph and looked as though a collision with our planet could happen, so scientists decided to take action and knock it off course.
Now, a much larger asteroid is heading this way, and while it only has a small chance of hitting us here on Earth, there's a significantly larger chance of it crashing into the Moon, with a 4 percent chance of it hitting in December 2032.
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A group of scientists, including one from NASA, are now looking at their options when it comes to the space rock, dubbed 2024 YR4, with their best option seemingly to blow the object up as part of a 'kinetic disruption mission,' Futurism reports.
They released their findings in a paper, which is yet to be peer reviewed, where they discussed wanting to avoid a collision between 2024 YR4 and the moon, over fears that astronauts in space could be battered by debris from the impact.
In a slightly more extreme strategy than DART, the scientists propose detonating the space rock using 'nuclear explosive devices', which, if successful, could provide an alternative option for diverting potentially dangerous asteroids heading towards Earth, 'even if lunar impact is ruled out.'
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Despite there still being several years before a collision is expected to take place, researchers say there's no time to perform a 'reconnaissance mission' to get a better understanding of the asteroid's mass, which would usually provided the necessary data for a successful deflection attempt.
Researchers do know the rock is around 300 feet in length, thanks to data collected by the James Webb Space Telescope, but that's pretty much all in terms of its specifics.
And, at that size, the asteroid could be anywhere between 72.7 million to 2 billion pounds, meaning attempts to nudge the object off course would be pretty much impossible.
Instead, the researchers have proposed a recon mission launching in late 2028, which would give them around three years to intercept the asteroid. However, in order to perform a 'kinetic robust disruption,' the team would need between five and seven years to develop a mission, while a 'nuclear disruption' window would be between the end of 2029 and 2031.
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So, what do they suggest?
Well, the team have put forward the idea of sending two nuclear devices that are five to eight times more powerful than the nuclear bombs the United States dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima in 1945. The devices would be capable of navigating space and locating the asteroid on their own, and a backup explosive would be onboard just in case.
Will it go ahead?
Given the small risk to the Moon and much smaller risk to those of us on Earth it might be a bit of a stretch to allocate resource to this particular mission, but who knows what the Trump administration will do next.