China crashes its spacecraft into an asteroid

The Chinese space agency, like NASA, plans to send a spacecraft to an asteroid to collide with it, diverting it from its original orbit and into a new orbit. China's new possible mission to deal with an asteroid to be launched over the next four years was announced Sunday by Wu Yanhua, deputy director of China's National Space Administration.

The country, however, has not yet determined which asteroid it will target. The mission was announced as part of an effort to defend China's new and larger planets, which seeks to list and monitor near-Earth planets, especially those that may be threatening to our planet.

Includes a new alert system. Ultimately, the goal of China's Planetary Defense Program is to identify an asteroid that may threaten Earth and send a spacecraft to collide with it and change its orbit during the process. It is still too early to know the practical outcome of this action, as the plan is being considered for approval.

This idea seems to have been around for some time. In January 2022, a letter issued by Chinese officials outlined plans to study a planetary defense system, and last October the country hosted a planetary defense conference. Develops asteroids and conducts exercises on what to do in the event of a collision. NASA and the European Space Agency have done similar simulations so far. Including a simulation last year that had alarming results.

NASA is also carrying out its asteroid deforestation mission. The mission was launched in November 2021 (3 Azar 1400). However, the agency has not yet identified or targeted any potentially dangerous space rocks. ) Is. NASA's dart is scheduled to divert the space rock, Dimorphos, from orbit on September 26, 2022.

Collision data could inform planetary defense efforts Help in the future, if needed. Small space rocks hit our planet every day and fall on the earth in the form of meteorites and dust. But these are the larger rocks that space agencies like China (CNSA) and NASA are most concerned about.

(Greater than 1 km) have been found and tracked near us. But smaller asteroids can still be catastrophic, and efforts to identify and track this type of space rock are still ongoing.

Kurds

This is why China, the United States and many other countries are interested in defending the planet. Not only do all of these countries want to know what is likely to be on Earth's path, but they also want to know how they can stop it. .
Credit: NASA

Source: The Verge