Scientists unveil plan to save Earth from killer asteroid
The headline seems like something ripped off of a thousand sci-fi plots, but the threat is legitimate.
Chinese researchers from Beijing’s Tsinghua University have revealed plans to divert the asteroid Apophis — which may well collide with Earth in a couple decades — by smashing a kamikaze solar sail into it.
The asteroid, 99942 Apophis to give it its full title, is a 46 million tonne, 1,600-foot-wide chunk of space rock that’s currently hurtling its way towards our planet. In 2029 it will soar safely past Earth, but we won’t be out of the woods just yet.There’s a possibility that it will pass through a slim gravitational keyhole — a tiny, 600 mile area of space — that would cause the asteroid to turn back on itself and strike Earth some seven years later in 2036.
In 2009, US space agency NASA said that there’s a 1 in 250,000 chance that the asteroid will strike Earth. For a little perspective, you have a 1 in 14 million chance of hitting the jackpot on the UK’s National Lottery.
