European Space Agency working on spacecraft to steer asteroids away from Earth
Hollywood films would have you believe that the best way to deal with an Earth-threatening asteroid is to blast it out of orbit.
But the European Space Agency (ESA) is looking at a far subtler approach to saving the planet - a gravity tractor.
The plan involves sending a spacecraft to rendezvous with a dangerous asteroid and use its tiny gravitational field to slightly alter the space rock's trajectory so that, over time, it would soar harmlessly past Earth.
It is an idea that has been floating around for several decades, but has only recently become more pressing following the 2024 YR4 scare earlier this year - an asteroid that came seemingly out of nowhere and at one point had a one in 32 chance of hitting Earth in December 2032.
Joseph Aschbacher, the Director General of ESA, admitted he had been ''very worried' about 2024 YR4 and said the space agency was stepping up its planetary defence capabilities.
Speaking to The Telegraph at Space-Comm expo this week, Dr Aschbacher said: 'I was very worried.
'If the asteroid is in front of your door, more or less, it's too late, and we probably cannot do much.
'The earlier you detect an asteroid that might impact planet Earth, and the earlier you can take action far away from planet Earth, the higher the chances are that it will not have negative impacts.
'(A planetary defence mission) may actually start, by just sending a satellite there, and letting it fly close by the asteroid so that the gravity of the satellite influences the gravity of the asteroid itself.
'Slightly by degrees, it would change the trajectory, and therefore may result in a different trajectory than the ones that might be directed to Earth. So the further away you can do it, the bigger the chances of minimising damage.'
Last year, ESA announced that it planned to rendezvous with the asteroid 99942 Apophis, a cruise ship-sized rock, which makes an exceptionally close flyby of Earth in April 2029, when it will be visible to the naked eye.
The mission, called Ramses (Rapid Apophis Mission for Space Safety), will give a crucial window into how asteroids are impacted by gravitational forces - in this case, the gravity of Earth.
Apophis was predicted to get dangerously close to Earth in 2068, but experts have since revised their calculations and no longer see it as a risk.
'We have a mission planned already to encounter that asteroid before it comes to Earth, and to really measure it,' added Dr Aschbacher.
'We are not assuming it will hit planet Earth, but it will fly by very closely, and that will be quite a spectacle, in terms of every citizen being able to see it, but it is a unique opportunity to really study the asteroid close by.'
Most asteroids and comets have orbits that do not bring them very close to Earth, and they are only classed as dangerous if they come within 4.6 million miles and are larger than 460 feet.
But occasionally they can hit. The last major impacts include the Tunguska event in 1908 in Siberia which felled an estimated 80 million trees, while the 2013 Chelyabinsk meteor is the only known incident in modern times which resulted in numerous injuries.
Only one asteroid deflection test has ever taken place in space. In 2022, Nasa sent its Dart (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) spacecraft to crash into Dimorphos – a 525ft-wide 'moonlet' which circles a larger asteroid called Didymos.
The team had hoped the impact would shorten Didymos' 11 hour 11 minute orbit by a few minutes, but it ended up shaving off around half an hour.
However, the impact had unexpected consequences, unleashing a storm of boulders 'as deadly as Hiroshima' and proving that deflection strategies could have unintended consequences that leave smaller rocks on a collision course with Earth.
In contrast, a gravity tractor would cause less collateral damage, gently nudging an Earth-bound asteroid in a new trajectory.
Last year, ESA launched a spacecraft, named Hera, which is travelling to Didymos-Dimorphos to assess the true scale of the damage in a mission which will help determine which asteroid defence scheme will be chosen in the event of another scare. It is due to arrive in October next year.
Dr Paul Bate, the chief executive of the UK Space Agency, said: 'Asteroids are one of the ways in which you show the power in space, so we are right to be worried.
'Whether we like it or not, these things have been happening literally since the start of the solar system. We're connected.
'We don't have any choice, but we know we can actively choose to understand more and that's very important for deflection, for protecting our planet.'
Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
8 hours ago
- Yahoo
Astronomers finally figured out how Pluto cools itself
If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, BGR may receive an affiliate commission. Pluto might be small and distant, but it keeps surprising scientists. After the New Horizons spacecraft zipped past it in 2015, we got our first real look at its icy landscape and unexpectedly active atmosphere. But even with those discoveries, one question lingered in scientists' minds. How does Pluto regulate its temperature with such a strange environment? Well, thanks to new data from the James Webb Space Telescope, researchers say they may have found the answer, and it's pretty wild. Where most planets rely on gases in the atmosphere to regulate their temperatures, researchers believe that Pluto cools itself using haze particles. Today's Top Deals Best deals: Tech, laptops, TVs, and more sales Best Ring Video Doorbell deals Memorial Day security camera deals: Reolink's unbeatable sale has prices from $29.98 See, Pluto's atmosphere is incredibly thin and made mostly of nitrogen, with traces of methane and carbon monoxide. What makes it special isn't just its composition, but the presence of a constant haze. This haze is made up of tiny particles, and if the data from James Webb is correct, it does more than just drift around in the cold. Normally, planetary atmospheres manage temperature through movement and properties of gas molecules, as I mentioned before. But Pluto cools itself differently. As sunlight hits the planet, the haze particles absorb energy and rise. When they cool, they sink again. This up-and-down cycle helps manage the planet's heat, keeping the atmosphere in a delicate balance. No other world cools itself this way, as far as we know. The idea is kind of crazy, but it also isn't unprecedented. Researchers actually proposed it a few years ago, before we had any proof. That's where James Webb comes in. Recent observations focused on Pluto using mid-infrared wavelengths. The telescope detected the exact type of thermal signals that scientists had predicted. The haze in Pluto's atmosphere was indeed radiating heat, just as the theory suggested it would. But these findings tell us more than how Pluto cools itself. They will also force scientists to rethink what's possible for other hazy worlds. Moons like Titan and Triton, for instance, also have nitrogen-heavy atmospheres and thick hazes. They could be managing their heat in similar ways. There's also a deeper link to our own planet. Researchers say Earth's early atmosphere may have looked more like Pluto's, filled with nitrogen and hydrocarbons. By studying how Pluto's haze behaves, researchers might uncover clues about how conditions to support life first formed here on Earth. More Top Deals Amazon gift card deals, offers & coupons 2025: Get $2,000+ free See the
Yahoo
8 hours ago
- Yahoo
Our planet's oxygen levels will drop, and there's no way to stop it
If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, BGR may receive an affiliate commission. It's no secret that Earth is doomed. Sure, there's the threat of climate change and the fact that sea levels are rising around the world. But that's not what we're talking about. Instead, our planet's impending doom is actually set to happen billions of years from now, long after we're all gone, when the oxygen levels drop and life as we know it ceases to exist. When this change occurs, it's going to happen pretty rapidly, a study published a few years ago claims. It will be similar to the Great Oxidation Event (GOE) that happened over 2.4 billion years ago. Back then, oxygen flooded the Earth's atmosphere, giving birth to life as we know it today, or at least its earliest evolutionary forms. Today's Top Deals Best deals: Tech, laptops, TVs, and more sales Best Ring Video Doorbell deals Memorial Day security camera deals: Reolink's unbeatable sale has prices from $29.98 Researchers have long argued that atmospheric oxygen, which humans need to breathe, is unlikely to be a feature of habitable worlds forever. We've seen other planets around us that appear to have been stripped of their oxygen, like Mars and Venus. And many argue that Earth is set to see a similar future at some point down the line. Of course, the factors resulting in dropping oxygen levels are complex. Not only do we have natural global warming to blame, but human-driven climate change could also play a large role in the end of life on Earth as we know it. Models suggest that Earth's oxygen levels could drop as low as those of Archean Earth, when microbial life was the only life to be found on our little blue and green planet. Those levels of oxygen would, obviously, not be ideal for people or animals that require oxygen to breathe. Of course, there is always the chance that we manage to get off Earth and settle somewhere else before Earth becomes uninhabitable, but if we don't, and humans are still alive billions of years from now, then it will be the end of the road. Overall, Earth's future billions of years from now is looking pretty bleak. Scientists estimate that the sun will explode, effectively ending life in our solar system some 2 billion years from now. Before that happens, life on Earth will change drastically, as oxygen levels are expected to drop almost a million times lower than today, researchers told New Scientist. Luckily, the end of the world isn't the most pressing problem we have to face at the moment, though there are arguments about how we could possibly delay the inevitable. Even if we did, there's not really anything we could do about it but hope Elon Musk and NASA's plan to put humans on Mars in the 2030s works out. More Top Deals Amazon gift card deals, offers & coupons 2025: Get $2,000+ free See the
Yahoo
9 hours ago
- Yahoo
The Webb telescope found something exceedingly rare around a dying star
The Ring Nebula is a well-known space icon shaped like a doughnut about 2,500 light-years away in the constellation Lyra. But astronomers think it's been holding a secret that only the penetrating gaze of the James Webb Space Telescope, a joint project of NASA and the European and Canadian space agencies, could reveal. Using Webb's infrared-sensing MIRI instrument, scientists got a clear sightline to the small but scorching star at its center. The shriveled core — a white dwarf — is all that remains of the star on its deathbed, having molted its outermost layers. When researchers zoomed in, they got a surprise. Surrounding the withering star was a disk of dust, much like the kind found around new stars that are in their prime planet-birthing years. It was kind of like seeing a pregnant octogenarian in a nursing home. This is just the second time scientists have observed such a disk around a star at the end of its life. And though they can't actually see baby planets in their nebula images, they are now wondering if these space environments could trigger a second generation of planets, long after the original brood of worlds formed around the star. The discovery, published in The Astrophysical Journal, is "raising questions about their nature, formation, longevity, and potentially a second phase of planet formation," the authors wrote. SEE ALSO: Spectacular Webb telescope image shows a stellar death like never before The James Webb Space Telescope provides a clear view of the central white dwarf creating the Ring Nebula in the left image. Credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / Raghvendra Sahai et al. Unlike giant stars that explode into a supernova and collapse into a black hole when their time is up, a medium star gradually runs out of nuclear fuel and suffers a more prolonged death. These stars, like our midsize sun in perhaps 5 billion years, decline into so-called planetary nebulas, a confusing misnomer for the phenomenon because they have more to do with aging stars than planets. Scientists have discovered a few thousand planetary nebulas in the Milky Way. Those include the Ring Nebula, aka NGC 6720 and Messier 57. With Webb, the researchers could see a compact dust cloud around the central white dwarf creating it. "These are first seen as the gas-and-dust-rich planet-forming disks in young stellar objects, and are an integral part of the star formation process itself," the authors wrote. "Remarkably, dusty disks or disk-like structures manifest themselves again as these stars reach the ends of their lives." Such a rare sighting is believed to have happened once before, when astronomers got a look at the Southern Ring Nebula with Webb, at wavelengths far beyond what people can see with their eyes. In the first images, astronomers were amazed to spot the true source of the nebula, said Karl Gordon, an astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. "We knew this was a binary star (beforehand), but we effectively didn't really see much of the actual star that produced the nebula," he said during a 2022 news conference. "But now in MIRI, this star glows red because it has dust around it." The James Webb Space Telescope spots a dusty disk around the central white dwarf powering the Ring Nebula. Credit: NASA GSFC / CIL / Adriana Manrique Gutierrez illustration The dust cloud around the Ring Nebula is composed of tiny grains of amorphous silicate, a glass-like substance, according to the new paper. These particles are miniscule, perhaps less than one-thousandth the thickness of a human hair. The cloud itself stretches thousands of times wider than the distance between the Earth and the sun. The researchers noticed something else intriguing at the center of the nebula. The white dwarf's brightness keeps changing. That might be a clue that another star is lurking in the shadows nearby, perhaps a small-but-feisty red dwarf star. While scientists haven't directly spotted the buddy yet, they can infer it's there from patterns in the nebula. The study could help confirm earlier findings that suggested the star had two companions — one far in the outskirts of the system and another nearby. A close star could explain the strange arcs and rings seen around the nebula.
