Exactly 30 years ago, on July 16, 1994, astronomers watched the first fragments of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 slam into Jupiter with incredible force. The event sparked interest in planetary defense. There is a pressing question of what humans can do to prevent such collisions from happening to our planet.
We’ve now seen scientists come up with ways to deal with space objects that could potentially collide with Earth, such as NASA’s Dart project, which is testing a crash redirection of the asteroid Dimorphos in 2022, the latest in the European Space Agency’s space safety project. Authorized to begin preparations for a planetary defense mission called the Rapid Space Safety Apophis Mission – Ramses, or Ramses, will encounter asteroid 99942 Apophis before it orbits Earth. It will track the asteroid as it passes by, observing how Apophis is distorted and changed by Earth’s gravity. The information gathered will help scientists develop ways to protect Earth from similar objects that are expected to collide with it in the future. Ramses is scheduled to launch in April 2028 in order to reach Apophis in February 2029.
As for the asteroid Apophis, it is said to be about 375 meters in diameter, the size of a cruise ship. It will orbit close to the Earth's surface at a distance of 32,000 kilometers on April 13, 2029. It is inhabited by about 2 billion people in Europe, Africa and parts of Asia. Apophis can be seen with the naked eye for a short time when the sky is dark, and Apophis's passage over the next five years is considered a very rare natural phenomenon.
Credit: ESA Science Office
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