NASA Simulates Large Asteroid Hits In 2038

Training to deal with dangerous asteroid attacks (photo: dock. NASA)

NASA held the Fifth Planet Defense Inter-Institutional Tabletop Exercise on Thursday, June 22. This training was carried out so that stakeholders in the US could face asteroid threats. Currently, the Earth is not haunted by the threat of asteroids. However, training of this table remains necessary so that the US government can respond to dangerous asteroid threats very quickly and search for collaboration opportunities by presenting various scenarios. All participants present simulated attacks from previously unidentified asteroids. These asteroids are expected to hit Earth within 14 years or in 2038 with 72 percent chance of occurrence. In early observations, it was explained that the size, composition, and long-term trajectory of asteroids could not be determined. To make the scenario even more complicated, follow-up observations had to be delayed for seven months as asteroids were behind the Sun. With the creation of this hypothesis exercise, the stakeholders present must identify and resolve potential problems. NASA explained that nearly 100 people were present at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) to take part in this table exercise. Lindley Johnson, Planet Emeritus Defense Officer at NASA Headquarters, said that this exercise illustrates the uncertainty of the extraterrestrial threat. Exercise against this asteroid was deliberately made very challenging.

"The impact of a large asteroid has the potential to be the only natural disaster that mankind has predicted years before and took action to prevent it," Johnson said. In making a threat scenario from this asteroid, NASA collaborated with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the US State Department's Office of Space Affairs. They utilized data from Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) technology. DART is a demonstration mission launched in September 2022 to confront asteroid attacks. This spacecraft crashed into the Dimorphos asteroid to change its trajectory so as not to lead to Earth. This mission was successful because the Dimorphos orbit had changed even though it was still surrounding the asteroid Didymos. As a result of the DART impact, Dimorphos underwent a change in shape and large rock measuring one to six meters off from the asteroid.