A threatening asteroid could bring Earth’s oft-quarreling nations together, at least for a while.
Dealing with a large, dangerous asteroid in the crosshairs of our planet will require a healthy dose of international cooperation, experts say, and it’s best to start thinking about that scenario now while we have enough time to determine a potential response. frame.
The United Nations (UN) is developing “procedures to respond to tsunamis and other major events,” Leviticus “LA” Lewis, an official with NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO) at the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), said at a press conference . Briefing on Thursday, June 20. “But in the case of an asteroid impact, we think the scale of that will be such that we really need to discuss right now what it would take for an international response on such a large scale,” he added.
Part of this response will include coordinating the evacuation of people in the potential impact zone, which will likely cover a large area, given how quickly asteroids move through space and how difficult it is to determine the orbit of a newly discovered asteroid. (Small uncertainties in the calculated path will lead to large differences in the predicted impact point on Earth. And it’s the newly discovered space rocks that will be the ones to worry about; none of the large asteroids we already know about pose a threat to our planet in the foreseeable future.)
“If we talk about multiple countries and people having to act and respond to a very large area, that can be challenging,” Lewis said. “We need to organize and start discussing what it actually takes to coordinate a major effort. So who will be in charge? What organization? How would we set it up? Would it be the UN? Would it be a combination of international organizations? So how do we actually achieve this? That’s the new challenge.”
Lewis was discussing the results of the fifth Planetary Defense Interagency Tabletop Exercise, an asteroid threat simulation conducted April 2 and 3 at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Maryland.
The exercise, the fifth of its kind conducted by researchers following similar studies in 2013, 2014, 2016 and 2022, was intended to “inform and assess our ability as a nation to effectively respond to a potentially hazardous asteroid or comet threat.” ” NASA officials said in a statement.
Participants, about 100 people from various U.S. federal agencies and international agencies, considered the following hypothetical scenario: Scientists have discovered a relatively large asteroid that appears to have an orbit that would impact Earth. There is a 72% chance of hitting our planet on July 12, 2038, along a long corridor that includes major cities such as Dallas, Memphis, Madrid, and Algiers.
But this is only a first snapshot, with many important facts still unclear or unknown. For example, it is unclear how large the asteroid is; The estimated size range is 200 feet to 2,600 feet (60 to 800 meters). And researchers don’t know its composition, which is a very important detail; A heavily metallic or stony asteroid will behave quite differently, both during a possible deflection attempt and at impact, than a “rubble pile” of dirt and gravel, such as the space rock Bennu that NASA’s OSIRIS-REx probe visited and sampled several years ago. .
“The uncertainties in these initial conditions for the exercise allowed participants to consider particularly challenging conditions,” Lindley Johnson, a retired planetary defense officer at NASA Headquarters in Washington, said in the same statement. “A large asteroid impact is potentially the only natural disaster that humanity has the technology to predict years in advance and take action to prevent.”
Relating to: Potentially dangerous asteroids (images)
No further information about the newly discovered space rock will be revealed for some time: The exercise predicted that it would disappear behind the Sun from the Earth’s perspective, making further telescope observations impossible for the next seven months.
Participants at the April exercise, organized by PDCO and FEMA with assistance from the U.S. State Department’s Office of Space Affairs, talked about potential next steps.
They examined three main possibilities in the near future; one was to do nothing until more telescope observations were made. The other two would begin studying and possibly even developing a fact-finding mission to the menacing space rock—either a flyby or a more complex, purpose-built rendezvous effort that would dock with the asteroid for an extended period of time.
The cost of the flight will likely be between $200 and $400 million. The price tag of the appointment mission will be higher; Around $800 million to $1 billion.
Most of the exercise’s senior leaders preferred two or three options “but also noted: [that] The initial report on the simulation, which you can find here , states that “political realities will limit immediate action.”
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This report contains a selection of comments from anonymous exercise participants. “The most important topic of the morning was the discussion involving the political nature of decision-making,” one such comment read.
Another noted, as did Lewis, the global nature of the problem: “It is critical that there is international involvement early. This credibility is crucial and must be established now.”
The exercise did not result in any strict rules to be followed when a threatening asteroid is discovered. (And planetary defense experts say it’s really a matter of “when” rather than “if”; at some point a large space rock will come our way.) But such prescriptions were not expected; Rather, the main purpose was to talk through the possibilities and gain greater familiarity with the steps the scientific and international community would take to deal with an approaching asteroid.
“The actual plan, the specific exercise results are essentially nothing,” Johnson said at Thursday’s briefing. “Going through the process of planning and working together, communicating and working with each other is the real purpose of this exercise.”