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NASA and ESA's asteroid researchers recently teamed up on an ambitious mission to use two spacecraft to deflect an asteroid into space. The ESA "Risk List" contains 878 asteroids. The space agency warned that even the impact of a small asteroid could "cause serious damage to populated areas". On Tuesday, ESA wrote on its website: "According to the latest ESA estimates, there are 878 asteroids on the 'risk list'.
"This ESA catalog includes all known asteroids that have a" non-zero "chance of impacting Earth in the next 100 years – meaning that an impact, however unlikely, can not be ruled out.
"An impact, even caused by a small asteroid, could cause serious damage to inhabited areas.
"That's why ESA, together with international partners, is taking action to search for asteroids, develop a technology that could hinder them in the future, and collaborate internationally to support mitigation measures.
"The many upcoming meetings will cover vital topics of global defense, including the first-ever planned test of asteroid deflection, coordination and communication of asteroid warnings and how to ensure an effective response." field emergency as efficiently as possible.
READ MORE: Asteroid News: NASA partners with ESA to fight giant asteroids
"With all the work underway, the planet has never been so prepared for the unlikely but very real threat of an asteroidal impact."
ESA has invested £ 21m in projects such as the Hera mission (Human Exploration Research Analog), which will study the binary asteroid Didymos, which is expected to fly over the Earth in 2022.
Studies such as Hera will help ESA better understand how it can protect our planet against asteroid kills.
The ESA said: "Thanks to the collaboration" AIDA "between ESA and NASA (for the assessment of deformation of asteroid impacts), the spacecraft NASA's DART will crush on the 160-meter Didymos-B asteroid (also called Didymoon), the smaller of the two).
However, some ongoing projects could help Earth protect itself from the potential impacts of asteroids.
NASA is currently studying the asteroid Bennu, where his OSIRIS-Rex spacecraft arrived last year.
Part of the reason why NASA sends the OSIRIS-Rex space probe is intended to gather more information about 500-meter-long space rock.
NASA fears that the asteroid, which could destroy a country on Earth, could affect our planet in the next 120 years, with the next imminent flyby in 2135.
The mission will provide essential information on how to deflect asteroids from their collision course with the Earth.
But NASA reiterates that, even if there is a small chance for the Earth to be affected, "over millions of years, of all the planets, Bennu is most likely to touch Venus".
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