How to stop an asteroid from hitting Earth

Unlike the dinosaurs who had no foreknowledge of a disaster waiting to eliminate life on earth, NASA prepared a scenario on how to respond to such a situation.

Asteroid on collision course with earth.

Just a month ago, some experts at NASA were put through a simulation of an “armageddon” scenario. The simulation was based on an asteroid that was over 50km wide that was heading for Earth and would make contact within six months.

Unlike the dinosaurs who had no foreknowledge of a disaster waiting to eliminate life on earth, NASA prepared a scenario, put in places as an exercise to help the United States and other international experts practise how to respond to such a situation if the need arises.

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The simulation helped them to learn, if there had to be a situation where we were caught off guard and a huge rock is heading our way, there is little to nothing we can do about it in such a short space of time.

However, all is not lost, as some experts like Richard Binzel (MIT astronomer) and Paul Chodas (manager of NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies) believe that given a few years to prepare (between five and 10 years) for an attack from a celestial body, they could be either diverted or destroyed before making contact with the earth.