By Chethana Janith, Jadetimes News
NASA recently conducted a simulation of a catastrophic asteroid impact to develop prevention strategies, emphasizing the importance of planetary defense. The exercise, held at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in April, is part of an ongoing series aimed at preparing for potential asteroid threats. A preliminary report on the results has been released, with a detailed report expected in August.
This fifth Planetary Defense Interagency Tabletop Exercise is part of an eleven year series, each focusing on different potential strike scenarios to determine immediate and long term actions required. For the first time, international collaborators, including representatives from the UN, UK, ESA, and JAXA, contributed to the discussion, although Russia and China were notably absent.
The scenario involved an asteroid a few hundred meters across, with a 72% chance of impacting Earth in about 14 years. The projected path of the asteroid crossed from the Pacific Ocean through northern Mexico and the southern US, passing directly over Dallas and Washington, DC, before moving over the Atlantic Ocean and Europe, including Portugal, Spain (Madrid), and northern Africa. Participants noted that this scenario could directly affect the area they were sitting in.
Calculations showed a 45% chance that the impact wouldn’t affect anyone, a relatively high chance of impacting between 1,000 and 100,000 people, and a 0.04% chance of impacting more than 10 million people, such as a direct hit on the Dallas metropolitan area. This uncertainty and the extended timeline presented the most significant challenge for the planetary defense officials during the exercise.
As in "Don’t Look Up," political considerations were at the forefront of participants’ minds. Many echoed the sentiment of one anonymous participant reported in the preliminary report, “I know what I would prefer [to do], but Congress will tell us to wait.” The uncertainty about the impact, especially whether it would affect anyone at all, was a major consideration. In the scenario, the asteroid passed behind the Sun, making additional observations to clarify those estimates impossible for another seven months.
The availability of resources was another primary consideration, both for closely tracking the potential impactor and designing and executing a mission to potentially deflect it. Participants expressed concern that there wouldn’t be enough resources for either task and stated this was one of their main concerns for the future.
Despite these challenges, participants agreed that the tabletop exercise was a massive success. It allowed decision makers who would be involved in determining the response to a potential real asteroid strike to think through the necessary steps and consider likely political and public reactions. Plans for additional exercises are already in the works, and the final report of this session is due to be released on August 5th, including specific assignable action items. While an expected asteroid impact isn’t foreseen in the coming decades, these exercises will continue to hone what is arguably one of the most valuable skills of any space agency – how to protect ourselves from one of our biggest threats.
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Lead Image,
This artist’s concept depicts an asteroid drifting through space. Many such objects frequency pass Earth. To help prepare for the discovery of one with a chance of impacting our planet, NASA leads regular exercises to figure out how the international community could respond to such a threat.
Credit – NASA / JPL-Caltech.
