The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) recently simulated an asteroid named “2021PDC” to hit the Earth exercise, the size of the asteroid about 140 meters is predicted to hit the Earth within six months, the exercise results found that the current Earth’s technology, there is no means to stop the asteroid impact.
Comprehensive foreign media reports, NASA simulation of the asteroid was named “2021PDC” is flying toward the Earth, “2021PDC” was discovered on April 19, when predicted to have a 5% probability of hitting the Earth in October.
Under continuous observation, it was confirmed on May 2 that the asteroid would most likely hit Europe or North Africa, and on June 30 it was further confirmed that the asteroid would fall in Eastern Europe, and four days before the impact, it was gradually narrowed down to confirm that “2021PDC” would fall in the border areas of Germany, the Czech Republic, and Austria.
The results of the exercise showed that there was no way to stop the asteroid from hitting the Earth in such a short period of time. The team said they had considered using nuclear bombs to blow up the asteroid, but the uncertainty was high and they eventually admitted that the only way to minimize casualties was to evacuate the population in the impact area.
NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) data show that an asteroid of this size hitting Earth would have a 21 percent chance of causing millions of casualties, with 6.6 million people in Europe likely to be affected, while an asteroid impact on the environment and world economic damage would be difficult to estimate, and there could be years of cold weather.
In order to avoid similar catastrophes on Earth, NASA will conduct a research defense system DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) test in the next few months, ready to launch a spacecraft to hit an asteroid to see if the asteroid’s orbit can be changed.
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