Last week , NASA and several Union agencies , together with multiple international organization , planned an exercise that might in the future save millions of lives . They simulated what would happen if an asteroid was observe on a collision class with Earth . It did n’t terminate well .
The exercise , part of the Planetary Defense Conference , tolerate researchers to work out scientific , technical , and political challenge that will have to be overcome in purchase order to successfully protect our planet from an asteroid impact .
The feigning , which condenses eight fabricated years into five days , belong like this : Thanks to ground - based observations , it ’s discovered thefictional asteroid 2019 PDChas a 1 in 100 prospect of hitting Earth . On Day 2 it ’s calculated that risk is now 1 in 10 and will in all probability hit Denver , Colorado on April 29 , 2027 . The planning phases of both the reconnaissance and deflecting mission step up a gear . By Day 3 , pose in late December 2021 , the first reconnaissance mission spacecraft has give the asteroid . On the deflection mission , several ballistic capsule are due to slam into the asteroid in August 2024 , to push it off range .
Day 4 started afew days afterthe deflection – and bring some good word and some very bad news . The main soundbox of the asteroid was successfully deflected but a modest fragment 50 - 80 meters ( 165 - 260 feet ) in sizing was still on a collision path with Earth – New York City to be precise . On top of that , the junk released by the impact destroyed the reconnaissance ballistic capsule take a crap it much hard to know what was happening .
" We need to challenge ourselves and ask the toughened interrogative . You do n’t larn anything if you do n’t study the bad possible type each day , " excuse Paul Chodas , theater director of the Center for Near Earth Object Studies at NASA ’s JPL , and creator of this class ’s scenario , in astatement .
Having run out of options , the squad re - proposed the atomic option that was discussed on Day 2 but was shelved due to widespread controversy and risk . They look at sending a300 - kiloton nuclear deviceto explode less than 145 meters ( 476 foot ) from the asteroid shard , which would either deflect it or fragment it , figuring showed .
But even with confidence in the numbers – the same scheme cope to save Tokyo in last year ’s pretending – the delegacy could not be implemented due to political disagreement , and the asteroid could not be stopped . All there was left to do was train New York City for impact .
twenty-four hour period 5 began just10 days beforeimpact . The asteroid would inscribe the atmospheric state at 19 kilometre per 2d ( 43,000 miles per hour ) and release the eq of 5 - 20 megatons of get-up-and-go in the airburst . It would explode about 15 km ( 9 miles ) above Central Park , destroy the city , and create a 15 - kilometer ( 9 - mile ) " unsurvivable " radius .
In this scenario , it ’s the Federal Emergency Management Agency ’s ( FEMA ) job to void and rehome 10 million people , their pets and belongings , protect atomic and chemical substance installations in the area , and transfer works of art . The step of the conversation switch from the technological and scientific , to the sociological , effectual , and political , and all the questions that come with that . How are people going to behave ? Who ’s pay for it all ? What about insurance policy ( the deflectioncausedit to rack up New York , not Denver , after all ) ?
" This physical exercise is valuable in that it go on the body of work presently in progress to name cardinal questions and issues for this broken probability but high upshot scenario , " said FEMA ’s Leviticus Lewis .
We manage to save Tokyo in last class ’s exercise , but other fictitious victims of asteroids include the French Riviera , Dhaka , and Los Angeles . However , the likelihood of an asteroid bear upon Earth remains highly unlikely and the exercises are forge to be the worst showcase within the kingdom of possibility . But like good sentry , it ’s good to be train . The next exercise will take place in Vienna in 2021 . Hopefully , the next target city might get by this grim fate .
