Dear MEL Topic Readers,
Can we spot a killer asteroid before it hits
Earth?
Can you imagine how vulnerable our planet is
to asteroids? Have we been hit only once a century or millennium? How deadly
could that be if the Earth is hit by one in the near future?
When an over-100-meter-wide meteor crashed
into Earth in 1908, as many as 80 million trees were knocked down over an area
of 800 square miles in the Siberian forest.
In 2013, when a 20-meter-wide asteroid
exploded in the skies over Chelyabinsk, Russia, the airburst caused shockwaves
that smashed windows and injured 400 people.
Last year, a small asteroid called 2018 LA
exploded over Botswana, Africa and a meteoroid of a size of 2-meter-across landed
in thick grass, which was retreated after an intensive search.
Aren’t these asteroid impacts frequent and
significant enough for human beings, and all the other earthlings, to worry
about? If it had been Central Europe, not Siberia, what scale of destruction would
have recorded in human history? People would not have had enough energy or
resources to engage in WWI. What if the last year’s tiny meteoroid had hit
Beijing or Washington DC instead of the grassland in Africa? The damage and
casualty would have been beyond imagination.
In order to save earthlings from killer space
rocks, a system of telescopes called Atlas is tracking objects flying around
our planet. Once a potentially hazardous asteroid is discovered, astronomers begin
plotting trajectories and predicting impact sites. When the asteroid comes
close enough for radars, they can estimate the density of the object to predict
landing area and the impact when it enters the atmosphere. Then an early
warning could be issued to the people in the predicted area.
Is there any way to avoid such devastating
impact?
Enjoy reading the article and learn about this
not a present but clear danger to all earthlings.
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