Mankind does not have technologies capable of reject a large asteroid flying toward Earth, NASA believes. Chapter Charles Bolden Agency answered questions from the Chamber’s Scientific Committee US representatives and advised to pray if before the fall the asteroid stays three weeks.
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The reason for the hearing was several rapprochements large objects with Earth reported by the media in the first two month of 2013. Politicians concerned about the fall of Chelyabinsk meteorite February 15, 2013, as well as the flight of a larger of a celestial body below the orbits of communication satellites that occurred on that same day. “Two such significant astronomical events that occurred in one day, prove that we live in the active part of the Solar systems, ”said Eddie Johnson, a Texas Democrat congressman. -Dangerous objects fly past the planet with amazing frequency. ” “We are lucky that the events of recent months were just an interesting coincidence, not a disaster, “- shared his Opinion Chair of the Science Committee Lamar Smith, Republican of Texas Congressman added that the committee is interested in knowing that NASA does to protect the US and the planet as a whole from falling asteroids, and how much money is needed to do this effectively. By According to John Holdren’s adviser to the President of the United States, who spoke in Congress, can end our civilization object with a diameter of 1 kilometer. However, he noted that discovered only 10% of 10 thousand celestial bodies with a diameter of more than 50 m, which may threaten the planet. According to statistics, asteroids of this size fall to Earth about once every 1 thousand years. “We do not have information about any asteroid threatening the US population – said NASA head Charles Bolden. – But if before the fall of this the facility will be less than three weeks old, pray. ” explained that right now there are simply no technologies that could prevent catastrophe if the threat is detected too late. IN at the same time, scientists are developing several methods of change trajectories of large objects. Each of these projects so far considered in theory. Interest in space threats has skyrocketed after the fall of the Chelyabinsk meteorite, which occurred on February 15. The shock wave knocked out windows in 3 thousand buildings, more than one and a half thousand locals suffered from cuts by broken glass and falling window frames. According to scientists, the released energy at meteorite destruction equivalent to an explosion of 100 to 200 ct, diameter celestial body did not exceed 20 m, and its speed was approximately 30 km / second.
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