NASA and FEMA are practicing what would happen if an asteroid hits the Earth

[nitpicker]

https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/26/world/nasa-fema-asteroid-impact-exercises-scn-trnd/index.html

NASA and FEMA are practicing what would happen if an asteroid hits the Earth

By Michelle Lou and AJ Willingham, CNN

Updated 10:08 AM ET, Fri April 26, 2019

(CNN) — When it comes to extraterrestrial threats, you can never be too careful, and NASA and FEMA aren't taking any chances.

The two agencies, together with some international groups, are holding a practice run of what would ensue in case an asteroid, comet or other near-Earth object (NEO) came hurtling toward the planet.

This type of natural disaster is not very likely to happen, but would be catastrophic in the rare chance that it actually does, NASA said in June 2018.

The two US agencies are partnering with international groups such as NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO), the European Space Agency's Space Situational Awareness-NEO Segment and the International Asteroid Warning Network (IAWN).

The drill will occur next week at the annual Planetary Defense Conference, where scientists from across the globe gather to discuss "threatening objects" to Earth. Specifically, they will participate in a fictional scenario in which an asteroid has an impact trajectory with the Earth.
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[nitpicker]

1. Link to Planetary Defense Conference website

http://pdc.iaaweb.org/

[nitpicker]

5. Initial press release (PDF link) now up

Via http://pdc.iaaweb.org/

[beachbum bob]

2. judging from whay I see in FEMA's response in PR, Florida and Texas, you don't have to practice

doing "nothing", they already have that down

[3Hotdogs]

3. Bring back Brownie is included in the plans.

[customerserviceguy]

4. I certainly hope

that getting a properly-fitted spacesuit for Bruce Willis is also part of the plan.

[Towlie]

6. Not with a bang but a whimper, or not with a whimper but a bang?

Either way,

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends

[nitpicker]

7. Can we protect Earth from asteroids?

https://www.dw.com/en/can-we-protect-earth-from-asteroids/a-48551169

Can we protect Earth from asteroids?

Date 30.04.2019

Time and again huge rocks pass by relatively close to Earth. In April 2018, for example, an asteroid named 2018GE3 with a diameter of 50 meters (164 feet) got dangerously close to us. It came from the dark depth of space and astronomers discovered it only 21 hours before the flyby.

Five years before that, a 20-meter meteorite hit the Earth close to Chelyabinsk in Russia. Catastrophy was avoided and consequences were relatively mild. Thousands of buildings were damaged by the blast's wave and more than a thousand people were injured, especially by flying glass fragments. But fortunately there were no deaths.

Astronomers are quite confident that they know where the even more lethal objects are, rocks that are several kilometres in diameter. They hope that planet Earth is not threatened by any such huge danger for at least the next 100 years.

But the "smaller" rocks with only several hundreds of meters in diameter can already cause devastating regional damage. The cases of the two asteroids mentioned above also show that we cannot possibly know them all.

For this reason, 300 astronomers, space engineers and other experts from the US, Russia, China, Germany, France and Israel are discussing the "space situation" this week.

At the 6th IAA Planetary Defense Conference in Maryland, USA, the main focus will be on possible defense strategies. The North American Space Agency NASA is organizing the conference together with researchers from the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL).

The scientists have devised a hypothetical asteroid up to 300 meters in size, which races towards the Earth at a speed of 14 kilometers (8.6 miles) per second, i.e. around 50,000 kilometers per hour, from a distance of 57 million kilometers. The probability that it will hit us is estimated at one percent. One way to deal with this would be to evacuate the threatened regions on Earth.

At the conference, however, the participants will also demonstrate various methods by which mankind can deflect the asteroid from its dangerous path, such as NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART)developed by NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office in Washington, together with APL. In 2022, a real 150-meter-diameter asteroid, which is not posing a current danger for Earth, is to be deflected from its orbit by a collision. The researchers want to find out whether such a method promises success.
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