Time: 2024-07-15
There are many ways our civilization could come to an abrupt end , but only a handful of them have to do with forces so powerful and out of our control that they 'd be impossible to stop . An asteroid strike is one of those world - ending events we would be completely defenseless against , and the more we try to find ways around them , the more we realize that 's almost impossible.
As per the most recent count , the number of near - Earth objects ( that is asteroids and comets ) , meaning the ones close enough to our planet to pose a potential danger to it , is of over 20,000 . We know the orbits and behavior of many of them , but not all , and that has a lot of people in powerful places quite worried . So much so , in fact , that some are actively trying to do something . Back in 2013 , for instance , the American space agency kicked off a series of meetings called the Planetary Defense Interagency Tabletop Exercise.
Dedicated to all those with something to say in planetary defense , the exercise takes place every two years , and each time it is centered on a new impact scenario to which solutions must be found . When it was all done , it turned out six months is not nearly enough time for us to do anything about an incoming asteroid . So the exercise eventually turned from an active operation into an evacuation game for the population of Germany , the Czech Republic , and Austria , where the scenario said the asteroid will hit.
14 years is the timeframe from the discovery of an asteroid to it striking our planet in the most recent tabletop exercise conducted as part of the fifth Planetary Defense Interagency meeting , which took place back in April at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel , Maryland . The simulated math performed as part of the scenario said it had a 72 percent chance of hitting our world 14 years after the moment of discovery , with the impact zones estimated to be non - descript , heavily populated areas in North America , Southern Europe , and North Africa.
The idea behind this scenario was to see what could be done to either stop the asteroid or mitigate the effects of its strike . About 100 scientists from U.S. and international organizations scratched their heads trying to figure out the best course of action . They considered pretty much everything , from sending a reconnaissance spacecraft to learn more about the asteroid 's size , composition , and orbit , to trying to change its trajectory just like the Double Asteroid Redirection Test ( DART ) spacecraft showed we could easily do . NASA hopes that by launching a new telescope in 2027 , we will learn about more than 90 percent of the dangerous bits of rock orbiting our planet within a 30 million miles ( 48 million km ) radius.
In conclusion , despite ongoing efforts by NASA and other international organizations to track and mitigate potential asteroid impacts , the threat of a large asteroid impacting Earth remains a concern . Advanced warning systems and strategies are being developed , but the risk of a catastrophic Impact event still looms.
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