Is humanity prepared to face an asteroid that has a 72% chance of hitting Earth in 14 years?
Scientists and experts say there is still much work to be done.
When NASA presented the hypothetical scenario, developed by the Planetary Defense Coordination Office, to a group of nearly 100 government officials, they found that its plan to defend against an asteroid hurtling toward Earth had several “high-level gaps,” according to a NASA presentation. Space agencies have “limited readiness to quickly conduct the required space missions,” and methods for informing the public of an impending disaster are not yet fully developed.
Thirty-three percent of respondents from federal agencies such as the State Department and international organizations such as the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs said humanity is not prepared to launch a space mission to prevent an asteroid from hitting the planet, and 19 percent said it lacks the capacity for “reconnaissance missions.”
Kelly Fast, NASA’s acting planetary defense officer, said the exercise helped government agencies plan how they will work together to prepare for a future asteroid impact.
“In the unlikely event that we ever face such a scenario, it would not be the first time someone has talked about how to deal with it,” she said.
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NASA conducts fifth test to check preparation for asteroids
The exercise, designed to test governments’ preparedness for an asteroid heading toward Earth, was organized by NASA and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) at an April meeting at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, according to a press release. It was the fifth test to determine whether agencies are ready to defend Earth from space. This year’s exercise was the first to include “international planetary defense collaborators.”
In the hypothetical scenario, an asteroid collides with Earth in 2038. The probability that the collision will affect more than 1,000 people is 47%, and the probability that more than a million people will be affected is 8%. The impact could affect numerous cities in the United States, Europe, and Africa, including Washington, Dallas, Madrid, and Algiers.
In this scenario, participants were not informed of the “size, composition and long-term trajectory of the asteroid,” the press release states. Further observations of the asteroid would also hypothetically have to be postponed by at least seven months because the asteroid would pass behind the sun – “a critical loss of time.”
Even if the agencies had years of preparation time, they would need to be efficient in responding to an approaching asteroid, Fast said. “Planning a mission, any kind of space mission, is not something that happens overnight,” she said.
“Although 14 years sounds like a long time, it may not be when you think about mission development,” Fast added.
Space officials have only one proven method of deflecting an asteroid on its way to Earth – “kinetic impact,” or slamming a spacecraft into the asteroid to change its trajectory. In 2022, NASA crashed a spacecraft into Dimorphos, a small “moon” orbiting the asteroid Didymos about 6.8 million miles from Earth, successfully shortening the moon’s orbit by 32 minutes, NASA said.
Fast said scientists would need to tailor a space mission to respond to a specific asteroid collision scenario.
“It all depends on the asteroid,” she said. “A single kinetic impactor might work on a smaller asteroid, but not on something much larger.”
Some participants were also skeptical about whether there were enough federal funds available to counter the threat, the presentation said. The decision-making process was “unclear,” it said.
The experts also concluded that the authorities would have limited opportunities to gather more information about the approaching asteroid if they flew a spacecraft near it.
The presentation also warned that coordinating the release of information about an asteroid heading toward the planet could be problematic. “One would have to deal with misinformation and disinformation,” they wrote.
“It is critical to maintain trust at the beginning of this event, and that means talking early – probably earlier than the scientists and lawyers would like,” said another unnamed participant.
Fast said it was important to “put information in a form that the public can understand and not be too technical and jargony.”
The recent exercise, which used data from the test, recommended further testing of the new technology
Fast said people could rest assured that scientists and authorities were working together to develop strategies for the unlikely event of an asteroid collision.
The scenario is “just an opportunity to further explore these possibilities and our own preparedness and figure out how we can do better in the future.”
“It’s actually a good thing to talk about,” she said.