An Asteroid Headed Our Way Is About to Test NASA’s Planetary Defense System – Futurism

2012 TC4

Our Solar System is littered with chunks of space rocks that whizz around in different orbits and varying speeds and its no big deal until one of those rocks turns out to be on a nasty unexpected trajectory and smashes into Earth.

Itsactually a pretty unlikely apocalypse scenario, but even with one in 10,000 odds its a good idea to keep an eye out. Now NASA scientists are excited theyll finally get to test out some of their defence systems with an upcoming asteroid fly-by in October.

Dont run for the panic room just yet the inbound asteroid, called2012 TC4, is estimated to safely pass our planet at a distance of about 6,800 kilometres (4,200 miles). We dont have a more concrete number because the space rock has been out of telescope range since 2012.

At a width of roughly 10-30 metres (30-100 feet), TC4 is pretty small. So far astronomers have only caught a glimpse of it once when it hurtled past Earth back in 2012 at a distance much closer than our own Moon.

Back then they only had a window of seven days to make observations and calculate when this asteroid will show up next.

But based on that data, it looks like TC4 will zoom around again on October 12 this year, and researchers are making preparations to not only update their observations of this particular object, but also to test out some of their planetary defense strategies.

This time we are adding in another layer of effort, using this asteroid flyby to test the worldwide asteroid detection and tracking network, assessing our capability to work together in response to finding a potential real asteroid threat,says observation campaign lead Michael Kelleyfrom NASA.

This is the first time NASA researchers get to use an actual space rock for their planetary defense efforts, which involve astronomers from all over the world.

The Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO) wasonly established last year, with the goal to survey the skies for any near-Earth objects that are big enough and close enough to pose a risk to us.

Just last October the offices new space monitoring systemsgave us a heads-up about an unexpected asteroid flyby, calculating its timing, risk, and potential flight paths.

But this time around researchers can actually plan to coordinate their activities.

This is a team effort that involves more than a dozen observatories, universities and labs across the globe so we can collectively learn the strengths and limitations of our near-Earth object observation capabilities,says Vishnu Reddy from the University of Arizonawho will coordinate this new exercise.

While we know for sure that TC4 is not going to smash into Earth, theres so little astronomers know about its orbit that its actually a great test subject for strategies that can improve our ability to track and predict near-Earth objects.

It will be incumbent upon the observatories to get a fix on the asteroid as it approaches, and work together to obtain follow-up observations than make more refined asteroid orbit determinations possible,explains Paul Chodasfrom NASAs Center for Near-Earth Object Studies.

Even though so far a space rock apocalypse is relatively unlikely, NASAs efforts to detect and catalogue as many asteroids as possible is commendable it only took one stray chunk of space debris to wipe out the dinosaurs, after all.

Unfortunately, even with the coordinated efforts to find these space threats, for now theres not a lot we can actually do about them. Thats why some experts warn we really should build anintercepting spacecraft before we need it.

You dont have to lose any sleep over the October 12 flyby, but lets hope that by the time PDCO has sharpened its skills and does find a real threat, we actually have some space bombto blow it up with. Or something.

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An Asteroid Headed Our Way Is About to Test NASA's Planetary Defense System - Futurism