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This is one of the conclusions of scientists from around the world gathered in Luxembourg, on the occasion of the celebration of the Asteroid Day.
Another is that prevention is very important and that for this it is necessary to develop asteroid detection and monitoring missions and, finally, to divert them from their trajectory if they represent a threat to the Earth.
Therefore, the European Space Agency (ESA) will request the approval of the Hera mission to the Council of Ministers in December 2019, whose cost is 250 million euros (289 million euros). dollars).
Hera Mission
Hera would measure the result of a previous NASA mission, the DART (reorientation test of a double asteroid), which in October 2022 he aimed to divert the 39, a two-body asteroid Didymos, whose current trajectory should bring it to pbad this year just 11 million kilometers from the Earth.
The Hera project director, Ian Carnelli, said: This mission will complete the US mission, it is a unique opportunity to complement the international experience and collaboration. "
It is also the first mission towards a binary asteroid, with two bodies, and the European contribution to a major experiment of defense of the Earth.
The binary Didymos system consists of two bodies: Didymain , 780 meters in diameter and the size of a mountain, and Didymoon, a moon of 160 meters, the size of the Great Pyramid of Giza,
The collision of the mission of NASA will change the speed of the moon in orbit around the main body of a fraction of 1%, which can be measured with telescopes of the Earth. 19659002] DART will impact the Didymos moon 1.5 meters from the center and will slow down its period Orbital 12 hours in just 5 minutes, or 0.5 millimeters per second, a very small amount but sufficient to change its speed, diverting it The aerospace engineer added that these data are theoretical, but only when the experience is realized, a crater will be created, which will free up equipment, and thus the slowing of traffic.
Protecting the Earth
NASA wants with this project to demonstrate that the Earth can be protected from future impacts of asteroids and that this DART will intercept the Didymos moon in early October 2022.
ESA wants to arrive at this asteroid four years later, in 2026, to measure how much the asteroid has moved, its physical dynamics, its properties and to make high resolution images of the crater generated by DART, explained Carnelli . 19659002] The expert warned that, precisely, "the smaller asteroids are the most dangerous because they reflect less light and have less air and, although today it does not. there is no threat to the population, when there is, there will be time to do something and therefore it is important to prevent it. "
Most asteroids orbit in the belt between Jupiter and Mars, known as asteroids, but some have entered the system Solar orbits and crosses the Earth
These are the dangerous and those who, according to experts, deserve attention.
The Hera Mission, which takes its name from the Greek goddess of marriage and which ESA will propose with more detail in March of next year, had an ancestor of the AIM (Mission Impact against an asteroid) and Don Quixote to investigate how an asteroid could be hijacked if necessary, whose main contractor was the Spanish company Deimos Space, who has not left to go ahead for reasons budget.
"An asteroid of 160 meters, like Didymos's moon, represents a greater threat and would create damage no matter where it fell, probably in the water, creating a unami It could destroy a city like Madrid or Paris or a bigger one and people would die, "according to Carnelli.
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