They can destroy life on earth: The danger of asteroid impacts calls space agencies of NASA and ESA on the scene.
Darmstadt - Asteroids brought life and death into the world.
While, according to researchers, they provide sources of water on the one hand, 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 again in the focus of the space authorities - 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 Europe: space agencies NASA and ESA before historic mission
Nasa and Esa are currently worried about the fear of asteroid impacts.
What we usually know from science fiction films should soon become real.
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.
It is a kind of dress rehearsal that sends the space authorities on a major and historic mission in the coming year.
After all, the risk of an asteroid impact is huge, as recently suggested by a NASA simulation *.
Joint bombardment is planned to prevent asteroid impact in Europe
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 aim 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.
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In 2022, Nasa and Esa want to change the orbit of an asteroid for the first time in the history of space travel.
© dpa
Asterid hits Europe: In 2013, a 20-meter asteroid hit the middle of a Russian city
To see how much asteroids can devastate the world, you don't 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 the explosive, which in 1945 immediately killed around 100,000 people.
Asteroids that suddenly change their trajectory are a constant threat
Another presumably another asteroid impact occurred on June 30, 1908, which razed millions of trees in Siberia.
Due to this far-reaching environmental catastrophe, the United Nations declared June 30th to be International Asteroid Day in 2016.
After all, known objects can also pose a threat relatively suddenly.
Just like the asteroid Apophis, which suddenly changed its trajectory - after it recently got close enough to Earth for new measurements, NASA gave the all-clear: it was able to recalculate a possible impact from asteroid Apophis and declare it unlikely.
For the long-known asteroid called 2009JF1, on the other hand, experts are calculating a possible impact for 2022.
"Asteroids can be the alpha and omega of life on earth"
According to experts, asteroids are particularly dangerous at a size of around 50 meters.
But if researchers should come across such a chunk in the future, it would still not be advisable to blow it up.
So they could be essential to human life in spite of their destructive power.
This is also the result of the planetarium in Hamburg, which has recently reopened *.
"The idea is that the asteroids we see today are related to the building blocks of the earth, to the original bodies that built the earth".
Rather, it is assumed that the asteroids could be the main source of water.
“Asteroids can be the alpha and omega of life on earth,” Koschny continues.
* 24hamburg.de, tz.de, merkur.de and hna.de are offers from IPPEN.MEDIA.
List of rubric lists: © dpa
