Hundreds of ideas have been promoted over time by space agencies to prevent an asteroid from a cataclysmic collision with Earth. However, there has never been a singular organisation or agency to deal with the threat.
However, that is all about to change, thanks to a team of former astronauts who pooled together various resources from space agencies around the world, with the UN now giving their approval to form what is being touted as an “Asteroid Warning Network”, being implemented as soon as December.
The aim of the project is to combine knowledge from different countries to share what is known about asteroids, and have scientists also come up with ways to deflect small asteroids from impacting Earth.
A big reality check was given to the humble residents of Earth when a meteor broke up and collided with Earth earlier this year in February over Chelyabinsk, which injured over a thousand people.
‘Because near-Earth asteroid searches have focused almost exclusively on large objects with global destructive potential, 99 per cent of the objects big enough to level a major metropolitan area remain undiscovered,’ the group said in a statement.
‘As technology improves and hundreds of thousands of new asteroids are found, the global community will likely be confronted by one posing a worryingly high probability of striking Earth.’
In a landmark move last month, the United States and Russia signed an agreement to develop new weapons together that could help destroy incoming asteroids.
Check out the full article here at The Daily Mail.
