Chinese researchers suggest deflecting “Armageddon” asteroids with rockets

BEIJING (Reuters) – Chinese researchers want to send more than 20 of China’s largest rockets to train to hijack a sizable asteroid – a technique that can potentially be crucial if a killer rock is on a collision course with Earth .

The idea is more than science fiction. Between late 2021 and early 2022, the United States will launch a robotic spacecraft to intercept two asteroids relatively close to Earth.

When it arrives a year later, the NASA spacecraft will crash into the smaller of the two rocky bodies to see how much the asteroid’s trajectory changes. This will be humanity’s first attempt to change the course of a celestial body.

At the National Space Science Center of China, researchers found in simulations that 23 Long March 5 rockets striking simultaneously could deflect a large asteroid from its original path by a distance of 1.4 times the radius of Earth.

Their calculations are based on an asteroid dubbed Bennu, orbiting the sun, which is as wide as the Empire State Building is tall. It belongs to a class of rocks capable of causing regional or continental damage. Asteroids extending over 1 km would have global consequences.

The science center cited a study recently published in Icarus, a journal on planetary science.

Long March 5 rockets are essential to China’s short-term space ambitions, from delivering space station modules to launching probes to the Moon and Mars. China has successfully launched six Long March 5 rockets since 2016, the latest causing security concerns as its remains re-entered the atmosphere in May.

“The proposal to keep the top stage of the launch rocket as a guide spacecraft, making a large ‘kinetic impactor’ to deflect an asteroid, is a pretty cool concept,” said Prof. Alan Fitzsimmons of the Center for research in astrophysics from Queen’s University Belfast.

“By increasing the mass hitting the asteroid, simple physics should ensure a much larger effect,” Fitzsimmons told Reuters, although, he added, the actual workings of such a mission need to be further investigated. in detail.

Current estimates show that there is about a 1% chance of a 100-meter-wide asteroid hitting Earth in the next 100 years, said Professor Gareth Collins of Imperial College London.

“Something the size of Bennu’s collision is about 10 times less likely,” Collins said.

According to scientists, changing the trajectory of an asteroid poses a lower risk than blasting rock with nuclear explosives, which can create smaller fragments without changing their trajectory.

(Reporting by Ryan Woo; Additional reporting by Liangping Gao. Editing by Gerry Doyle)

Related stories