A suicide mission to an asteroid tests a way of defending Earth
Detected early enough, a threatening space rock might be safely deflected
The idea that Earth is threatened from outer space sounds, on first encounter, like science fiction. Potentially hostile aliens either do not exist or, if they do, are too far away to matter. But space rocks are real—and some, at least, are too close for comfort. It is less than a decade since residents of Chebarkul, a city in Chelyabinsk oblast, Russia, witnessed the explosion in the atmosphere of a meteorite reckoned to have been a mere 20 metres across. Though no one was killed in this incident, about 1,500 people were seriously injured, mostly by flying window glass.
This article appeared in the Science & technology section of the print edition under the headline “Journey’s end”
From the October 1st 2022 edition
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