Experts join forces in a mission to attempt to nudge an asteroid away from its orbital route in preparation to save the Earth and its civilization.
According to Tech Times, the European Space Agency teamed up with The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to form Asteroid Impact and Deflection Assessment (AIDA), which was discussed in Nantes, France during EPSC2015, to know whether by crashing a spacecraft towards the asteroid will change its route.
It is said that this move by the joint US-European mission, specifically called Asteroid Impact Mission, will launch on 2022 in order to prepare human civilization in case an asteroid will move towards the planet and to know if we could really save the Earth by crashing a space craft toward the asteroid, called Didymoon.
Didymoon, which according to Yahoo News, is an egg-shaped asteroid that measures 160 metres wide, which is equivalent to 525ft. It was also noted that crashing a spacecraft to Didymoon will test whether if in case a larger scale of asteroid runs towards Earth can be nudge outside its orbital path.
The spacecraft, known to be NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test probe, that will be used to hit Didymoon will only center on the asteroid and will build a detailed map of the rock by focusing its imaging instruments to it. The said spacecraft will also be releasing CubeStats - two small satellites - in gathering details about the rock.
According to reports, the mission will help researchers and scientists to understand the amount of force needed in order to shift the asteroid to collide with the Earth. ESA's Ian Carnelli also added that obtaining this information will give them a baseline in organizing foreseeable support strategies and a better understanding of how the particular process could be implemented once real danger is about to take place.
This awareness is really important to all humankind as even a small asteroid could possibly wipe out one nation.