How to protect our earth from impacting as big as earth size asteroid or.... in near future?

Question

1) There may be big asteroids heading towards earth at enormous speed, which human being is yet to find it out ?
2) It`s very difficult to change direction ?

Answer 1

There are no earth size asteroids. The earth is the 6th largest object in the solar system after the Sun and the 4 gas giants and bigger than Mars Venus and Mercury. So if there were an object as big as the Earth and therefore bigger than Mars Venus and Mercury, it would have long ago been classified as a planet, not an asteroid!

You appear to be unaware that there is international co-operation between NASA, the European Space Agency and others on a project called Spaceguard. which keeps an eye open for asteroids, comets and other objects that may perhaps be on a collision course with the Earth.

The term Spaceguard loosely refers to a number of efforts to discover and study near-Earth objects (NEO). Arthur C. Clarke coined the term in his novel Rendezvous with Rama where SPACEGUARD was the name of an early warning system created following a catastrophic asteroid impact on Italy. This name was later adopted by a number of real life efforts to discover and study Near-Earth Objects.

A 1992 U.S. Congressional study produced a "Spaceguard Survey Report" which led to a mandate that NASA locate 90% of large near-Earth asteroids within 10 years

We know as of September 2006 of some 342,536 asteroids, But of these. only a relatively small number come inside Mars' orbit and less than 5,000 are classed as Near-Earth Objects.

As of August 31, 2006, 4,187 NEO's have been discovered: 57 near-Earth comets and 4,130 near-Earth asteroids. There are 792 NEO's which are classified as potentially hazardous asteroids.

Estimating the risks

There are two schemes for classification of impact hazards: the simple Torino Scale and the more complex Palermo Technical Impact Hazard Scale

On 25 December 2004, minor planet 99942 Apophis was assigned a 4 on the Torino scale, the highest rating so far. At 27 December 2004 there was a 2.7% chance of Earth impact on the 13 April 2029. However, on 28 December 2004, the risk of impact dropped to zero for 2029, but, due to a resonant return possibility the Torino rating for an April 2036 impact rose to 4 in early 2005 and, as of August 2006, has dropped gradually to a Torino rating of 0 (zero). The Palermo rating (August 2006) is −2.25.

Once the Spaceguard community is alerted to a potential impactor its orbit is immediately studied in great detail to get a more accurate projection of whether there will be an impact scenario or not.

As you can see the immediate threat anticipated on 25th Dec 2004 of an impact 25 years later was able to confidently be rejected, 3 days later. Word went round immediately there was an alert and the work needed was done, even though it was Christmas.

So the astronomers are on the case. and the paranoid should not let their uninformed imaginations run riot.

Currently, the only known NEO with a Palermo scale value greater than zero is (29075) 1950 DA, which is predicted to pass very close to or collide with the Earth (p≤0.003) in the year 2880. If this collision were to happen, the energy released by a collision with (29075) 1950 DA would cause an extinction event which would destroy most life on the planet. However, humanity has over 800 years to refine its estimates of the orbit of (29075) 1950 DA, and to deflect it if necessary.

NASA maintains a continuously updated web page of the most significant NEO threats in the next 100 years - all or nearly all of which are highly likely to drop off the list eventually as more data comes in enabling more accurate predictions; however, that page does not, of course, include 1950 DA, because that will not strike for at least 800 years.

So it is down to vigilance so as to anticipate danger, precision so as to quantify it, and technical knowhow, so as to avert it.

Answer 2

Well, you would need only pray for people in New York. If your in Mass, what would you be afraid of? The way I heard it was the Charles Bolden, a Chief Engineer at NASA was asked by a Journalist what we should do if a giant asteroid were headed toward New York. He told the Journalist that we should pray. For the record, (and I would think the recent impact in Russia would have made this obvious) an asteroid impact does not automatically mean an apocalypse.

Answer 3

Other than an altered orbit and a bump on the head, the Earth will be quite alright. It doesn't need our protection. We, however, would be doomed. The Earth has been around for billions of years and it will shake us all off like dead fleas.

We've got 10 years before Bruce Willis retires and then we'll be defenseless. So we'd better pull our cabezas out of our derrieres and develop the necessary technology to send a colony over to Alpha Centauri.

Answer 4

If you are indeed talking about an earth size asteroid, I don't think we have anything on earth that can protect us even if we see it coming. Such a collision would certainly alter the earth's orbit and probably make life as we know it impossible. Life would probably have to re-evolve if that happened. In some cases, early detection would allow for the course of smaller object could be altered in time to completely miss earth or at least miss important parts of the planet.

Answer 5

Most likely we die.
They do have ideas to try, but, until they can try them looks like we have to wait for the big day. I would think they could test on a passing asteroid to learn, but, they may not want to play with what already missing us.
But, there many ideas of how to divert this from a Solar Sail pushing it to more extreme methods of a type of Propulsion Rocket.

Answer 6

space station with nuclear warhead to target incoming asteroids

Answer 7

click here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-Earth_asteroid

Answer 8

never fear... UNDERDOG is here