NASA plans to nuke asteroids to save Earth
- 6 years ago
SPACE — NASA has come up with a plan to save us all should a large space rock ever hit the planet, and it's pretty straightforward: nuke it!
According to the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the massive asteroid Bennu, which is taller than the Empire State building and larger than five football fields, is currently orbiting the sun 54 million miles from Earth.
It is classified as a 'potentially hazardous' object, with a 1 in 2,700 chance of crashing into the planet on September 25, 2135.
The spacecraft HAMMER, or Hypervelocity Asteroid Mitigation Mission for Emergency Response, would be able to use an impactor to change the trajectory of smaller rocks.
But for a large asteroid like Bennu, HAMMER would have to deploy a nuclear device to destroy it before it reaches Earth.
NASA has been monitoring the enormous space rock since it was discovered in 1999, and has sent out a space probe to take samples.
Bennu is one of 10,000 near-Earth objects it has detected, though only 2,500 of these are estimated to be as large.
According to the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the massive asteroid Bennu, which is taller than the Empire State building and larger than five football fields, is currently orbiting the sun 54 million miles from Earth.
It is classified as a 'potentially hazardous' object, with a 1 in 2,700 chance of crashing into the planet on September 25, 2135.
The spacecraft HAMMER, or Hypervelocity Asteroid Mitigation Mission for Emergency Response, would be able to use an impactor to change the trajectory of smaller rocks.
But for a large asteroid like Bennu, HAMMER would have to deploy a nuclear device to destroy it before it reaches Earth.
NASA has been monitoring the enormous space rock since it was discovered in 1999, and has sent out a space probe to take samples.
Bennu is one of 10,000 near-Earth objects it has detected, though only 2,500 of these are estimated to be as large.