NASA invests in "planetary defense" to detect and hijack killer asteroids

NASA has doubled its expenses to help detect and possibly deflect asteroids in a collision with the Earth.

Next year, the US space agency plans to spend $ 150 million on its "global defense" programs. Part of this money would be devoted to the development of asteroid and comet detection systems, such as the space rock the size of a football field that crossed the Earth this summer at 55,000 mph . Astronomers did not see it until 24 hours after it passed.

Alan Duffy, a professor of astronomy at Swinburne University, described the passing asteroid as a "killer of the city". If he had had a collision course, he would have struck the Earth with more than 30 times the energy of the atomic explosion in Hiroshima, reported the Sydney Morning Herald. NASA's director, Jim Bridenstine, compared it to the meteor that hit Chelyabinsk, Russia, in 2013.

Even though NASA has missed this relatively small asteroid, the agency is "really good at characterizing, cataloging and tracking objects a kilometer or more, which is the type of object that could damage the Earth permanently, "said Bridenstine. But NASA is investing in capabilities to discover these smaller objects.

According to NASA's budget, the agency has steadily increased its "global defense" allocations in recent years. This program received funding of $ 60 million for fiscal 2017 and $ 76 million for 2018, and is expected to receive $ 150 million in 2020. Figures for 2019 were not available because the budgets had not been adopted, according to NASA's budget report.

The mission of the agency, Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART, aims to "change the movement of an asteroid in space" and receives the bulk of funding of planetary defense. DART works by hitting potentially dangerous asteroids at a speed of about 6.6 kilometers per second, or 14,764 mph, in an attempt to alter the speed of the incoming asteroid.

A DART demonstration will take place in 2021 and will affect an asteroid of a size comparable to the one that crossed the Earth in July – about 160 meters in diameter. This is, according to NASA, "more typical of the size of the asteroids that could pose the most likely threat to the Earth".

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Calming the fears of an astronomical catastrophe such as that experienced by our Jurassic ancestors, Bridenstine reminds us that "the difference between us and the dinosaurs is that we have a space program and that we track these objects".