It’s not a secret to anyone that the Solar System has plenty of giant asteroids that could impact our planet one day. Luckily, most of the space rocks that enter our planet’s atmosphere are small enough to be obliterated due to their huge speed and air friction. Thus, they barely make it to the surface in one piece.
NASA is already on the lookout for large asteroids that could pose a threat to our planet one day. The space agency has done a pretty good job until now, but it’s obvious that some help from another source cannot be harmful.
China wants to monitor asteroids that could endanger Earth
According to Bloomberg Quint, China aims to monitor dangerous asteroids and take them down after it shall develop a system for such a purpose.
In 2025 or 2026, China will send a spacecraft to an asteroid to put the future system to the test. The goal will be to see if it is possible to change the asteroid’s course. The claim comes from Wu Yanhua, who’s the deputy director of the China National Space Administration. He didn’t provide details on how exactly the plan will work, but the idea of diverting an asteroid is surely not a new one among astronomers.
However, it’s obvious that astronomers still have a lot of work to do, regardless of whether China’s plan will work or not. The current detection systems are not perfect, but also, we have to admit that the sky is pretty big. You can’t possibly detect all threats when the sky is practically endless.
It’s hard to believe that an asteroid coming from another solar system could ever hit our planet. Pretty much all of the space rocks that impacted Earth were coming from our own Solar System, meaning that it’s almost impossible for them to belong to other star systems.