We really need to figure out how to stop a killer asteroid, scientists say

[TexasTowelie]

Imagine if scientists found out that a massive asteroid was on a collision course with Earth and would strike somewhere near Los Angeles by September 2020. What could humanity do?

Not much. At least, that was the result of a day-long tabletop exercise coordinated by NASA and FEMA late last month. In their hypothetical scenario, the space agency concluded that the 330-foot space rock was approaching too quickly to mount a deflection mission. The team from FEMA was left to figure out how to evacuate millions of people from Southern California.

This was a purely fictional exercise. NASA has discovered some 17,000 potentially hazardous near-Earth objects, but none of them is projected to come close to Earth in the next hundred years. No human that we know of has been killed by a meteorite or the effects of an impact, and the likelihood that this could happen to any of us is very, very slim. The chance of an impact big enough to destroy our planet is even smaller. Remember that Earth has suffered only one mass extinction-inducing impact that we know of in its 4.6 billion-year history, and even that asteroid didn't end life entirely. Our planet is pretty resilient.

Still, plenty of researchers don't want to simply wait around and see what happens. This week, more than 100 planetary scientists, physicists and engineers published an open letter in support of a joint European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA mission to survey a near-Earth asteroid and attempt to deflect it.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2016/11/18/we-really-need-to-figure-out-how-to-stop-a-killer-asteroid-scientists-say/

[font color=330099]Of course if they decide to deflect an asteroid during a test exercise it may result in putting the asteroid into a trajectory where it would strike the earth sometime in the future. It wouldn't be much different than sinking the eight-ball with an errant shot while playing pool.[/font]

[lapfog_1]

1. At this point, let it hit

maybe some animal species will survive and go on to evolve intelligence after a few million years.

"reboot the planet"

[MattP]

3. People are a bigger threat to the planet than any asteroid

[MANative]

2. I'd take the asteroid over 4 years of the orange turd and his cabal. nt

[longship]

4. We're pretty good at astrodynamics.

We regularly send probes to distant solar system objects, like New Horizons to Pluto, and then on to a small Kuiper Belt Object.

So putting an asteroid accidentally into a keyhole is not likely.

[2naSalit]

5. LOL!

[MFM008]

6. Hopefully it

Will hit the white house and Congress first.

[Vogon_Glory]

7. Those of us old enough to remember Clinton-era initiatives to build better orbiters remember

That the Republican-controlled Congress cut the funds for them.

Our civilization's survival--sacrificed to the Ba'al of tax cuts.

[woodsprite]

8. The Killer Ass-Droid will be inhabiting the White House after Jan 20.

unless the Electoral College comes through the way it was designed to do.