NASA's upcoming DART mission plans to hit an asteroid with a spacecraft to test Earth's defenses. But our chances of deflecting an asteroid depends on how much warning time we have.
Illustration shows one of the methods humanity could use to divert an asteroid. Placing a spacecraft alongside an asteroid creates a gravitational drag that could pull the asteroid off course.The gravitational tractor method makes use of Newton's Third Law of Motion, which says that for every action or force there is an equal and opposite reaction or force.
This technique may not work for asteroids with a diameter above 500 meters, the objects that pose the most significant risk to Earth, and it would still require us to have advance warning of an impact ranging from decades to years.The DART mission, set to launch on November 23 at 10:20 p.m. PDT , is an example of a kinetic impactor, the use of brute force to slam an asteroid off course.
The National Academy of Sciences says that the diversion of a smaller asteroid would require a warning time of at least one to two years. But, for the deflection of a larger asteroid, 100s of miles in diameter, decades would still be needed for this direct approach to be successful.researchers concluded that if Earth was threatened by a sizable asteroid impact with less than a decade's warning, the only chance of avoiding a massive impact would be the nuclear option.
Fortunately, in a simulation of such a situation, the authors found that over 99 percent of the blasted asteroid's mass didn't reach the ground. This was the case even when nuclear weapons were deployed with a lead time of less than a month.The Sentry Impact table currently lists no objects with a high probability of hitting the Earth, that doesn't mean such objects aren't out there, however.
Fortunately, ATLAS adds that this short notice likely only applies to smaller objects with a diameter of around 50 meters as larger objects are more likely to be spotted years ahead of impact.
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