What will happen if an asteroid 10 km wide hits Earth like in the movie 'Don Look Up'?
The Guardian reported on the 27th (local time) that even if an actual collision occurs, scientists have found that human technology can avoid extinction of mankind.
According to the report, Professors Philip Rubin and Alex Cohen of the University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara) in the United States shared a paper on the thesis draft site 'arXiv.org', saying, "We are I think we have crossed the technical threshold to prevent it from happening.”
If an asteroid 10km wide falls on Earth, it will have the same impact as the asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs about 66 million years ago, but humans can avoid extinction through science and technology.
According to the thesis, if an asteroid 10 km wide enters the Earth's atmosphere, in the worst case, the Earth's atmospheric temperature can rise to 300 °C, destroying all life on Earth.
However, as in the movie, if you change the trajectory by shooting down an asteroid with a nuclear missile, or if you cut it into pieces less than 1 km wide, it will burn out in the atmosphere and damage can be prevented.
At this time, it was analyzed that radioactive material falling to the earth would not be a big problem.
However, testing detonators before deployment of nuclear weapons is prohibited under the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, so it is expected that there will be political difficulties for this.
The thesis wrote, "I hope that the decision makers will not fall into confusion for political gain, as in the movie, and that, at least in real risk situations, rational logic will prevail."
The paper also reviewed the method tried in the movie 'Armageddon'.
In the movie Armageddon, when a planet the size of Texas in the United States approaches Earth, boreholes land on the asteroid, drill a hole, and then destroy the asteroid by planting a nuclear bomb inside the planet and detonating it.
The paper concluded that this method is not realistic.
Although asteroids the size of those in the movie do exist, he explained that it would take more than a million times the energy of all nuclear weapons on Earth to split such an asteroid in half.
If attempts to destroy or reorbit the asteroid are unsuccessful, he recommends an undersea or underground bunker as the last line of defense, stating that "preserving life underwater or underground would be a wise defense strategy for the survival of humans and other species." I did.
"It is best not to be in this situation, but to be prepared is better than to die," the paper added.
However, Mark McCorchran, senior research fellow for scientific exploration at the European Space Agency, tweeted that the paper was "a geek to get attention.
"The advice of scientists is routinely ignored," he said.
The United Nations Office for Space Affairs (UNOOSA) gathers experts every year to discuss ways to mitigate planetary collisions, legal issues, and ways to communicate with the public, the Guardian said.