08 Jul '21 13:54>
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/magazines/panache/in-the-future-earth-may-not-be-in-any-danger-from-asteroids-chinese-researchers-to-use-rockets-to-deflect-them/articleshow/84198933.cms
In the future, Earth may not be in any danger from asteroids. Chinese researchers to use rockets to deflect them
BEIJING: Chinese researchers want to send more than 20 of China's largest rockets to practice turning away a sizable asteroid - a technique that may eventually be crucial if a killer rock is on a collision course with Earth.
The idea is more than science fiction. Sometime between late 2021 to early 2022, the United States will launch a robotic spacecraft to intercept two asteroids relatively close to Earth.
When it arrives a year later, the NASA spacecraft will crash-land on the smaller of the two rocky bodies to see how much the asteroid's trajectory changes. It will be humanity's first try at changing the course of a celestial body.
At China's National Space Science Center, researchers found in simulations that 23 Long March 5 rockets hitting simultaneously could deflect a large asteroid from its original path by a distance 1.4 times the Earth's radius.
Their calculations are based on an asteroid dubbed Bennu, orbiting the sun, which is as wide as the Empire State Building is tall. It belongs to a class of rocks with the potential to cause regional or continental damage. Asteroids spanning more than 1 km would have global consequences.