They can destroy life on earth: The potential danger of asteroid impacts calls space agencies of Nasa and Esa on the scene.
Darmstadt – Asteroids brought life and death into the world. While they provide sources of water, according to researchers, they have shaken our home planet countless times in the course of world history – asteroid impacts on Earth are even more frequent than previously assumed. Researchers agree that the extinction of dinosaurs is primarily aided by the impacts of dangerous lumps from space. But now asteroids are coming back into the focus of the space agencies – but not for historical research: To protect against a possible earth impact, NASA and ESA are now planning an asteroid bombardment.
| NASA: | US Federal Agency for Space and Aviation Science |
| Founder: | Dwight D. Eisenhower |
| Founding: | July 29, 1958, USA |
| Head office: | Washington, DC, United States |
Asteroid approaching Earth: space agencies NASA and ESA before historic mission
Nasa and Esa are currently worried about asteroid impacts. Will that which you otherwise know from science fiction films become reality? The space authorities are already developing defensive weapons to be able to steer asteroids into other trajectories by bombarding them in 2022.
But there is no need to be afraid of the end of the world. This was only recently confirmed by the asteroid expert from the European space agency ESA, Detlef Koschny. There are currently no asteroids that could collide with the earth. Nevertheless, you want to be prepared for an emergency. Recently, NASA researchers were very concerned about an asteroid simulation. The operation of NASA and ESA in 2022 is a kind of dress rehearsal that will send the space authorities on a major and historic mission in the coming year.
A joint asteroid bombardment is planned to prevent earth impact
With their joint project, NASA and ESA are breaking completely new ground. They will be the first in the history of space travel to attempt to change the orbit of an asteroid. They are already scanning space for their endeavors in the coming year. The goal of the US probe “Dart” to be deployed is a smaller chunk of a double asteroid, which is to be fired in 2022. The “Hera” mission will follow in 2024 and will be controlled from the ESA control center in Darmstadt. Then the chunk from space should be examined.
Asteroid hits earth: In 2013, a 20-meter asteroid hit the middle of a major Russian city
To see how much asteroids can devastate the world, you don’t even have to open the science books about the Big Bang and the history of the earth *. It was not until 2013 that an asteroid caused great disaster in the Russian city of Chelyabinsk when a 20-meter-tall chunk threatened the city. The asteroid rushed to Earth without any warning and injured around 1,500 people.
The figures show that the effects of an asteroid impact could be devastating: According to researchers, an explosion of such an asteroid would release around 500 kilotons of TNT. In comparison: In the case of the Hiroshima bomb, it was around 15 kilotons of explosives, which in 1945 immediately killed around 100,000 people.
Asteroids changing their trajectory could be dangerous
Another presumably another asteroid impact occurred on June 30, 1908, razing millions of trees in Siberia. Due to this far-reaching environmental disaster, the United Nations declared June 30th to be International Asteroid Day in 2016. Finally, known objects can also pose a potential threat. Such as the asteroid Apophis, which had changed its trajectory. If it was initially attested to a possible danger for the year 2068, the likelihood of an impact by the asteroid Apophis is now considered unlikely, according to the latest calculations. * 24hamburg.de, tz.de, merkur.de and hna.de are offers from IPPEN.MEDIA.
List of rubric lists: © dpa
