Normally alerts of meteorites or asteroids approaching the Earth usually appear from time to timeWhat happens that they never really come to entail real danger.
However, this could one day happen and therefore we must be forewarned. With that intention the different space agencies are working on drills to prevent future collisions, and the one carried out last week was not positive for Europe.. In fact, an earlier one swept New York.
Raised a hypothetical situation in which an asteroid was approaching the planet at risk of impact, a mission led by the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. And the conclusion is clear, we are not prepared.
Based on the results of the drill, we would not have sufficient measures to deflect, stop or destroy an asteroid of the size of the one used in the test in less than six months, so the only solution left was order the areas in which an evacuation was going to impact.
The conditions of the drill
The imagined and posed situation was that of an asteroid called 2021PDC, discovered on April 19 and that would impact on October 20 (fictitiously). The site of the collision would be Europe, somewhere between Germany, Austria, and the Czech Republic.
But of course, this is not predetermined in the simulation, but It took two days to find out its size (140 meters in mass), the place of the fall, the trajectory, its danger or the date of the impact.
After trying to stop the asteroid and not being able to change its trajectory, The result of the test was that it would fall on October 20 at 17:02 in the aforementioned area, causing a devastation of about 300 kilometers in diameter. The first damage reaches these three countries, but the next day it would spread throughout Central Europe, due to the false impact at about 55,000 km / h.
The International Asteroid Warning Network could have only disseminate information necessary to countries to have an emergency response in case of impact.
Why are these simulations done?
The main objective is prepare the scientific community for such a threat if it ever occurs. For this, different situations are proposed that are trained and put into practice. With this you can identify problems, what would be necessary, how to change the trajectory of asteroids or improve the mechanisms evacuation.
In fact, the tests work because the most recent has served to verify that six months in advance would not serve to prevent the catastrophe that would suppose the approach of the asteroid.
In addition, the simulation was also done in order to observe how the damage would be caused to the geographical areas in which the impact would be closer.