Day asteroids, small are more dangerous



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Scientists agree that the smallest asteroids are the most dangerous and those that need to be monitored and better detected to prevent an impact on the Earth, which could cause many deaths. This is one of the findings of scientists from around the world, gathered today and tomorrow in Luxembourg, on the occasion of the celebration of the Asteroid Day on 30th. June.

Another is that prevention is very important and that 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.

The European Space Agency (ESA) will therefore request the approval of the Council of Ministers in December 2019 of the Hera mission, whose cost is 250 million euros (289 million dollars) .

Among his goals, Hera would measure the result of a previous NASA mission, the DART (reorientation test of a double asteroid), which in October 2022 aims to divert the two-body asyroid Didyme , whose current trajectory should lead him to spend this year only 11 million kilometers from the Earth.

  Graphic of the Hera mission of the Spanish European Agency
Graphic of the Hera mission of the European Space Agency (esa)

Graphic of the Hera mission of the Space Agency European (esa)

Hera project director Ian Carnelli told Efe that "This mission will complete the United States, it is a unique opportunity to complement international experience and collaboration. "

This is also the first mission to a binary asteroid, two bodies, and the European contribution to a great Earth defense experiment.

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 NASA mission will alter the speed of the moon in its orbit around the main body by a fraction of 1%, which can be measured with telescopes of the Earth.

DART will reach the Didymos Moon 1.5 meters from the center and slow down its Orbital period of 12 hours in just 5 minutes, or 0.5 millimeters per second, a very small amount but enough to change its speed, He added that these data are nominal, in theory, but only when the experiment will be achieved, an orbit could be larger. [19659002] NASA wants with this project to demonstrate that the Earth can be protected from the future impacts of asteroids and for this reason DART will intercept the Didymos moon at the beginning of October 2022.

  Chart of the crater that would create the DART at Didymon
] Chart of the crater that would create the DART at Didymon (esa)

Chart of the crater that would create the DART at Didymon (esa)

The ESA wants to reach this asteroid four years later, in 2026, to measure how much he has moved the asteroid, its physical dynamics, its properties and made high-resolution images of the crater generated by DART, explained Carnelli.

The expert warned that, precisely, "the smaller asteroids are the most dangerous as they reflect less light and look less and, although today there is no no threat to the population, when there is, there will be time to do something and therefore it is important to prevent. "

Most asteroids orbit the belt between Jupiter and Mars, known as asteroids , 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.

The Hera Mission, which takes its name from the Greek goddess of marriage and which ESA will propose in more detail in March of next year, had a predecessor to the AIM (Mission of 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, which did not implemented for budgetary reasons.

The 160-meter asteroid, like Didymos's moon, represents a greater threat and would create damage regardless of where it fell, probably in the water, creating a tsunami . It could destroy a city like Madrid or Paris or a bigger one and people would die, "according to Carnelli.

With the information of EFE

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