NASA Prepares For Asteroid Impact Event — Plans To Use Nuke To Blow Up Killer Asteroids On Collision Course With Earth

NASA has stepped up preparation to defend Earth against killer asteroids. The agency is looking into how a nuclear warhead could be used to blow up an asteroid on a collision course with Earth.

Meanwhile, conspiracy theorists have declared the recent intensification of efforts by NASA and related agencies to address the problem of planetary defense against killer asteroids as evidence that an asteroid impact apocalypse will occur in September 22–28, as predicted by doomsday theorists.

According to the New York Times, NASA is teaming up with the National Nuclear Security Administration in a planetary defense initiative to explore the possibility of using nuclear bombs to blow up asteroids found to be in collision course with Earth.

The scenario being envisaged is similar to that presented in the Hollywood movie Armageddon, in which a threatening asteroid was blown up using a nuclear weapon delivered into a crater blasted in the core of the asteroid.

The February 15, 2013, Chelyabinsk incident, when a meteor estimated at 7,000-13,000 metric tonnes and about 20 meters in diameter, caused a 500-kiloton airburst over Chelyabinsk, injuring more than 1,500 people, has helped to alert the world to the risk of an asteroid impact event. Later in March, also 2013, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden told Congress that the only defense we have against a large asteroid heading toward Earth is prayer.

Although many scientists believe that “nuking” could be an effective way to deal with medium-sized asteroids — between 164ft (50) and 492ft (150m) across — some experts have expressed concern that the resulting fragments could pose new risks and that a better option is to simply nudge the asteroid away from its Earth-bound path.

But it is understood that blasting the offending rock with a nuclear bomb could be the only option if the threat appears suddenly, leaving insufficient time to implement safer countermeasures. Scientists have said that if an adequate nuclear defense system was put in place, it would require only a few days notice to deploy it against a threatening asteroid.

The plan, as sketched by experts, would involve a space vehicle with two components that approach the asteroid. The first component of the vehicle blasts a crater in the asteroid while the second delivers the explosive inside the crater for maximum destructive effect.

NASA and the National Nuclear Security Administration have studied the threat of asteroids independently from different specialized perspectives. But now, the two agencies are combining their expertise to explore the design for a rocket that could deliver a nuclear warhead to a threatening asteroid.

Bruce Betts, director of science and technology for the Planetary Society, said a joint project between NASA and the National Nuclear Security Administration would allow the independent agencies to exploit the synergy of their core competencies.

“Often, these agencies focus on their own pieces of the puzzle, so anything that brings them together is a good thing.”

Although the Earth is bombarded constantly by dust grains and pebbles from space, a “dinosaur killer” appears in our neighborhood occasionally. NASA astronomers involved in the search for near-Earth asteroids believe that are about one million asteroids that are potentially a threat to Earth, but only a small fraction of the total have been discovered.

The search has focused on threatening asteroids larger than 1 km in size due to technical challenges involved in detecting smaller asteroids. NASA has identified more than 1,500 “potentially hazardous asteroids” (PHAs), consisting of rocks larger than 1 km.

Astronomers say they have identified up to 98 percent of threatening asteroids in the size range greater-than 1km. But objects in this size class, according to experts, are estimated to be only about one percent of the total number of objects in our solar system in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

Astronomers have raised alarm about the imminent threat of asteroids, decrying the fact that governments have not taken it seriously. Several astronomers, such as Edward Lu and NASA’s John Kessler, have said the Earth is under persistent imminent danger of being hit by a previously undetected “killer” space rock.

Recently, astronomer Professor Brian Cox said, “There is an asteroid with our name on it and it will hit us.”

Cox cited the example of the recent near-miss by the asteroid 2014 EC, about 25 ft across, which approached Earth at a distance of 38,300 miles – a hair’s breadth on the astronomical distance scale, only about a sixth of the distance between the moon and Earth.

“The likelihood of something hitting us in the future is pretty guaranteed, although we’re not freaking out that there is an imminent threat.”

The news comes ahead of the June 30 Asteroid Day campaign, spearheaded by experts and activists such as Brian May, astrophysicist and guitarist with the rock band Queen.

Asteroid Day was made to coincide with the anniversary of the Tunguska event of June 30, 1908, when an asteroid, believed to have been in the order of about 60 m (200 ft) to 190 m (620 ft), caused an airburst at an altitude of about 5-10 kilometers, releasing energy equivalent to about 10-15 megatons of TNT, and flattening hundreds of squares miles of Siberian forest.

[Image: Getty]