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Asteroids: The Hidden Danger in Our Solar System
Have you ever wondered if a meteoroid or asteroid could hit the Earth and make everything go astray? Well, it’s a possibility. Though most asteroids are found in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, there are quite a few close to our planet, and some of them are alarmingly big. In this article, you’ll learn more about asteroids, their potential impact and how we can prevent a catastrophic event.
What are Asteroids?
Asteroids are small rocky or metallic bodies that orbit around the Sun. They come in different sizes, from less than a meter to hundreds of kilometers in diameter. The main belt of asteroids contains millions of these space rocks that didn’t coalesce to form a planet, unlike our own planet Earth, formed from dust and gas, combined with gravity by a rotating debris disk, the same way the asteroids couldn’t gravitate to unify in a sphere.
The Threat of Asteroids
As asteroids circle around the Sun, they often cross paths with Earth. Although the vast majority of asteroids do not pose a significant threat to Earth, a single collision with a large asteroid could spell the end of civilization. A crucial part of avoiding an asteroid calamity is identifying any potentially problematic asteroids early on.
Preventing the Unpreventable
If we detect an asteroid on a collision course with Earth many years in advance, one technique we could utilize is nuclear defense. Blasting it with a bomb can change its trajectory, complicate or refine our potential evasion, fly there and launching an impact probe or robot equipped with thrusters that impact the asteroid repeatedly, will push it off track eventually towards a safer will.
The Tracking Program of NASA
To stop any asteroid impacts, the Near-Earth Object Program (NEO) of NASA purports to locate, track, and characterize asteroids greater than 140 meters in diameter on trajectories that encroach upon Earth’s orbit, and establish a credible threat assessment timeline for each of them. Although there’s good news, in that there is zero proof of impending asteroid collisions, we must remain observant and diligent in case of the outline of the globe’s political structure in terms of handling any possible dangers.
Final Thoughts
The Earth and asteroids share the same makeup, asteroids are authentic risks to our blue marble. However, right cooperation and innovation strategies can come to relieve our planet of worry. Let’s continue increasing our asteroid detection prowess and working on preventive measures to protect our species against future collision events. After all, an asteroid hit is anything yet foreseeable but circumlocutory access to abatement functions enhances your safety. Aren’t coming rapidly means enough of concern with the pandemic?
