Can we avert a Meteor Strike?

If you have seen the movie Armageddon or Deep Impact, you might have asked yourself would it be possible to avert an asteroid from hitting the planet. In movie they both use nuclear weapons to either split the asteroid in hopes that it would pass earth on both sides or completely blow up the asteroid from the inside. Is that even possible?

 

Following the meteor strike last Friday which injured 1200 people in Russia , a number of Governments around the world are now asking whether it would be possible to stop a meteor from hitting the planet. The Neo Shield consortium, a European Union funded organization, aims to find ways to deal with asteroid on a collision course to the planet. A conference was held in Vienna last Monday to discuss on possible means on averting objects that would hit the planet. Some of the ideas seems like something from a science fiction movie. Here are some of the ideas brought up in the conference

 

1.        Kinetic impactor – a huge spacecraft would be launch into the asteroid to alter the path it is supposed to take.

2.        Gravity tractor – a spacecraft would be placed near an asteroid and thrusters would be use to alter the asteroids trajectory.

3.        Using nuclear devices would be a last resort.

 

Also problem which needs to be remedied is the detection of asteroids. The current technology that Space agencies around the globe could only detect asteroids hours before it reaches the planet. NASA and ESA also have said that some strikes are completely unavoidable and warned governments to make plans for wide scale evacuations.

 

Scientist are also looking into the idea of harnessing the power of the suns and using it as laser beams to destroy incoming objects or alter the course asteroids are taking. It seems that this technology is something that far from reality, Gary Hughes, a researcher and professor from California Polytechnic State University said they were able to build the device but the device does not have the power needed to stop incoming asteroids. Building a much bigger device is the challenge that they are trying to resolve.

 

Astronomers with the University of Hawaii are developing a device that would hopefully in the future detect and provide a one week warning for a 50-yard asteroid and three weeks warning for asteroid with a size of 150-yards. The 50-yard asteroid could destroy something as a city while the 150-yard object could destroy a country.

 

Although some predicted that it would years before another asteroid would be close enough to earth, it is somehow reassuring that the technology that would somehow protect the planet from this threat is now being created. Who knows how long it would take to create this devices but at least the technology is not something that we only see in some science fiction movies