China is looking for new ways to combat the threat of a potential asteroid impact on Earth. This was conveyed by the Chinese Minister of Defense Wu Yanhua recently.
The plan is slated for technology testing to begin at the end of China's 14th five-year plan (2021-2025) or within the following year, China Central Television quoted China Central Television as saying Monday (25/4/2022).
The details of the project are not entirely clear at this time, though what is certain is that the Chinese National Space Administration (CNSA) is working on a ground and space-based early warning system that can observe incoming asteroids and sound an alarm if they pose a risk of impacting Earth.
In addition, they also plan to develop methods to prevent this impact from occurring. China's defense minister specifically said that they would 'perform a collision' to deflect this incoming asteroid from its orbit.
An asteroid impact is one of the worst natural disasters possible, because the level of destruction it can cause exceeds any other level of damage. The likelihood of damage caused by an asteroid impact varies based on a number of factors, most notably in terms of size. NASA considers asteroids 140 meters in diameter or larger to be a major concern if they hit the planet.
According to research from the Davidson Institute of Science, the educational arm of Israel's Weizmann Institute of Science, an asteroid with a diameter of more than 140 meters will release an amount of energy at least a thousand times greater than that released by the first atomic bomb if it hits Earth.
Something bigger, more than 300 meters wide like the asteroid Apophis, could destroy an entire continent. An asteroid more than a kilometer wide such as 138971 (2001 CB21), which flew past Earth in early March, could trigger a worldwide catastrophe.
Even small asteroids have the potential to cause damage, and there are many like this. Asteroids are one of the most common types of objects in the Solar System. Currently, more than 1,113,000 asteroids are known to exist in the Solar System, according to NASA, but those are only those that have been definitively identified, and experts are always discovering more.
How to Repel Asteroids
A number of projects have been proposed to help humanity destroy asteroids that are coming towards Earth. Despite what is often told in science fiction films, most scientists, except for a few, suggest that a nuclear bomb would be a bad idea.
The only project that has actually succeeded so far is the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) Mission, an initiative developed by NASA and the University of John Hopkins.
The DART mission attempted to launch a specially designed rocket to change the asteroid's path, effectively hitting the asteroid with the rocket at enough speed to change its course by a fraction of a percent.
The technology involved includes the 'kinetic impactor' technique, which is supposed to be able to change the asteroid's motion in space. A spacecraft will hit the asteroid at a speed of about 6.6 kilometers per second, which will force it to change its orbital speed.
Even if it's just a fraction of a percent, it's enough for astronomers to observe and measure. The mission launched last November and is scheduled to hit its target, the asteroid Dimorphous, in the fall of 2022.
