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On June 30th, Asteroid Day is celebrated, but scientists from around the world are already discussing in Luxembourg the state of global science, programs and missions aimed at detecting and tracking these celestial bodies.
Asteroid Day evokes the anniversary of the Tunguska event in Siberia on June 30, 1908, when a space rock about 37 meters wide entered the atmosphere and exploded into the sky releasing energy equivalent to about 185 bombs from Hiroshima, according to NASA data
An asteroid the size of Tunguska will enter the earth's atmosphere once every 300 years, according to the predictions . Of the more than 750,000 asteroids in the solar system, 1,800 have astronomical orbits near the Earth, so the danger of impact is real for the experts.
Most asteroids are in orbit in the belt between Jupiter and Mars, the asteroid belt, but some have entered the interior of the solar system and are crossing the Earth's orbit. These are the dangerous and those who, according to experts, deserve attention.
On behalf of the European Space Agency (ESA) will be present in Luxembourg, among others, its director, Jan Wörner, as well as the director of the mission Hera Ian Carnelli, the first towards a binary asteroid and the contribution European experience in the defense of the Earth.
The Hera mission, recently unveiled by ESA, is in the engineering phase, after the rejection of the missions. similar for budgetary reasons. US NASA also has its own mission, the DART (reorientation test of a double asteroid), with the aim of colliding in October 2022 against the two-body Didymos asyroid and changing its orbit to a speed of six kilometers per second, nine times faster than a bullet.
The Didymos binary system which is formed by 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, which turns around.
Binary asteroid systems represent only 15% of all known asteroids, but have not been explored so far. NASA wants with this project to demonstrate that the Earth can be protected from future asteroid impacts and will do so with Didymos, whose trajectory is expected to move it to only 11 million kilometers from Earth in 2022.
Hera's mission, which takes its name from the Greek goddess of marriage, is expected to reach Didymos in 2026, to make a scientific map of the surface and structure of its Didymoon high resolution visual, laser and radio moon. The day of the asteroid could be celebrated from tomorrow after a 48-hour event involving scientists, astronauts and artists.
The Queen's guitarist, Brian May, who is also an astrophysicist, will speak in Luxembourg with other experts about the need to accept the risks that asteroids entail, which are remnants of the question of the formation of the planets. ESA Astronaut Matthias Maurer will also participate in the event with colleagues Nicole Scott and Edward Lu, among others.
The interest aroused by asteroids also manifests itself at the arrival on June 27 of the Japanese ship Hayabusa2 to 162173 Ryugu asteroid, 300 million kilometers from the Earth, after a 42-month trip in the Space, to study in detail, deposit several Japanese mills and a European surface and bring a stone sample to Earth in 2020.
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