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If a huge asteroid hits Earth, at best, it will be hard to get to work that day.
The worst case, however, could include tsunamis, heat radiation, high winds, earthquakes, sunlight loss, and perhaps the end of all life on this planet.
That's why we do not want that to happen.
Currently, scientists believe that our best chance of managing a large incoming asteroid is either to reduce it to pieces before arriving here, or to cause an impact in the space that would alter its course. You will not be surprised to learn that both options are easier said than done.
But the big issues have forced American and European space agencies to form a partnership to meet the challenge of finding an effective way to prevent a large asteroid from hitting our planet and sending us potentially the same way as dinosaurs.
Unlike us, the dinosaur community did not have scientific scientists, which means that we humans have a much better chance of finding a realistic solution.
With this important goal in mind, researchers on asteroids and space engineers from the US, Europe and other regions of the world will gather in Rome, Italy, next week for a three-day meeting to discuss their latest projects for a bold double satellite mission. to deflect an asteroid. This ambitious project is part of an attempt to demonstrate that the technique may one day function as an effective method of planetary defense.
This mission, called AIDA (Asteroid Impact Deflection Assessment), aims to hit a spacecraft in the smaller body (about 160 meters in diameter) of the two asteroids Didymos to change its trajectory when moving between the Earth and March.
If successful, the second craft will record the moment of impact and collect as much data as possible to assess the effects of the collision.
High speed impact
The launch of the mission is scheduled for the summer of 2021. The NASA Double Asteroid Impact Test (DART) aims to reach its target at a speed of 4.1 km per second when it reaches space in September 2022 .
The second gear is a miniature CubeSat of Italian manufacture, called LICIACube (Italian CubeSat light for asteroid imaging), which will be used to record the moment of the impact and to evaluate the damage.
At the same time, Earth observatories will measure the effect of the impact on the orbit of the asteroid.
Landing
At a later date, the European Space Agency will follow up with the Hera mission to get even closer to the impacted asteroid, or even land on it. Using two CubeSats, the Mission should collect more detailed incident location data.
The data collected by Hera should allow scientists to further develop the technology as they work to create a viable system to deploy in the event of a serious threat of asteroids.
We hope that the Hera mission can begin in October 2024 and that its journey to the asteroid will take about two years. Fingers crossed, nothing huge happens in the meantime.
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