New Delhi:

An asteroid predicted with 100 per cent strike rate which can cause a 'matter of life and death' for living beings may hit Earth anytime. "It’s a matter of life and death. The chance of an impact is 100 percent, you just don’t know when,” Express quoted Lembit Opik, the Chairman of Parliament for the space nation Asgardia as saying. We all know, huge number of asteroids are already hovering around our Blue Planet and there is always certainty that one or more of them may hit Earth someday.

NASA is currently working on its Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) Mission to defend the planet against any extinction level asteroids that might come its way. Lindley Johnson, the Planetary Defence Officer for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration stated in the recently published book ‘End Times’ and wrote, "In the order of things people should be worried about, Near Earth Objects isn’t highest on the list’’.

"But it does have the potential to be the most devastating natural disaster known to man’’.

It is also known to the scientist that 800,000 years ago, a one-kilometre long asteroid crashed into Southeast Asia which our ancestors had already survived.

However, it is still a matter of study how the humans at that time survived such huge impact. It may be because humans are much smarter than dinosaurs gave them a edge when it comes to surviving asteroid attack. In 2016, a NASA scientist warned that the Earth is unprepared for such an event. In April 2018, the B612 Foundation reported "It's 100 per cent certain we'll be hit [by a devastating asteroid], but we're not 100 per cent sure when." Also, in 2018, physicist Stephen Hawking, in his final book Brief Answers to the Big Questions, considered an asteroid collision to be the biggest threat to the planet. Asteroid impact avoidance comprises a number of methods by which near-Earth objects (NEO) could be diverted, preventing destructive impact events. A sufficiently large impact by an asteroid or other NEOs would cause, depending on its impact location, massive tsunamis, multiple firestorms and an impact winter caused by the sunlight-blocking effect of placing large quantities of pulverized rock dust, and other debris, into the stratosphere.

According to expert testimony in the United States Congress in 2013, NASA would require at least five years of preparation before a mission to intercept an asteroid could be launched.

HIGHLIGHTS

First Published:

Monday, September 02, 2019 11:25 AM

Huge number of asteroids are already hovering around our Blue Planet. NASA is currently working on its Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) Mission. NASA scientist warned that the Earth is unprepared for such an event.