Space Agencies Join Forces to Stop Future Asteroids from Hitting Earth, Threatening Humans

In Europe, NASA scientists and space agencies are currently finding out how to stop future asteroids from threatening humans.

A report from the official website of the United States Embassy and Consulates in Italy specified that 65 million years ago, an asteroid collided with Earth and killed about two-thirds of life on the planet, putting an end to dinosaurs' reign.

Elena Adams, a NASA scientist, said during a panel discussion late last month on international cooperation for the planetary defense that the danger of asteroids "is real."

Adams is the systems engineer for the Double Asteroid Redirection Test or DART, the first interdisciplinary planetary defense mission.

DART Mission

The DART mission collaborates with three space agencies: NASA, the European Space Agency or ESA, and the Italian Space Agency.

NASA launched the said mission in November last year, and the spacecraft is scheduled to crash into a small asteroid that's 160 meters in diameter, called Dimorphos, in the Didymos asteroid system in late September.

Adams also explained that the space agency's goal is to go and slam into an asteroid "and change its trajectory."

With opening remarks, the panel, welcomed by State Department Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs Jennifer Littlejohn, was convened in advance of the United Nations' International Asteroid Day on June 30.

The said date is an observance of the anniversary of the Tunguska event involving an asteroid that heated the atmosphere of Earth over eastern Siberia on that day in 1908.

1908 Tungkusa Disaster

Approximately 50 to 80 meters across, the asteroid unleashed a force that flattened 80 million trees, destroying over 2,000 square kilometers of forest.

Thomas Jones, panelist and chairman of the Association of Space Explorers Committee on Near-Earth Objects and a former astronaut, said that the Tungkusa disaster in 1908 demonstrates the reason space agencies, scientists, and governments all over the world need to work to stop asteroids from hitting this planet in the future.

He said, there's a chance of stopping a natural catastrophe from happening by using their collaborative skills around the planet.

Jones and panelists said that by successfully changing Dimorphos' path, which is not a collision course with Earth, the DART mission would reveal that the international community is capable of defending against future asteroids that might endanger Earth.

LICIACube to Monitor Asteroid Collission

With a completely autonomous navigation system, the DART satellite will launch the Italian Space Agency's small satellite, also known as the Light Italian CubeSat for Imaging of Asteroids or LICIACube, to monitor the collision and gauge the effect on the asteroid.

Both the scientists and astronomers worldwide will monitor for changes as well, to the path of asteroids, and, in October 2004, the ESA is set to launch the HERA mission to rendezvous with Dimorphos and review the effects of the impact of DART.

A similar Share America report said, According to the Italian Space Agency's Space Situational Awareness Office's Ettore Perozzi, this is truly a momentous milestone mission as it is the initial step of understanding how an asteroid can be deflected.

Related information about saving Earth from asteroids is shown on Vox's YouTube video below:

Check out more news and information on Asteroids in Science Times.