NASA is stretch its muscles on how to respond to a threatening asteroid by experience its web of lookout track a real asteroid as if was on a collision course with our planet . The object , call 2012 TC4 , is not a menace and will whirr above our sky on October 12 , 2017 .
This is the first sentence NASA will use a real objective in one of its asteroid preparation drill . Previous exerciseshave been more theoretical , trying to work out how to near a divinatory crisis and the best access to solve it without casualties . Using an actual blank space rock will convey a more naturalistic dimension to the dry run , which is why Professor Vishnu Reddy of the University of Arizona suggested it .
" The question is : How prepared are we for the next cosmic threat ? " Reddy read in astatement . " So we declare oneself an experimental hunting expedition to practice the web and prove how ready we are for a potential impact by a hazardous asteroid . "
The campaign is part of NASA ’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office ( PDCO ) , a federal group in billing of organise efforts to detect and champion Earth from cosmic threat . The specific exercise will test the integral system , assessing everything from observation and modeling to prediction and communication theory .
" This is a team effort that involves more than a dozen observatories , university , and laboratory across the globe so we can collectively learn the intensity and limitations of our planetary defense capability , " say Reddy , who is coordinating the movement for NASA PDCO .
It ’s not just about our tech , it ’s also about the asteroid . We only observed 2012 TC4 for about a workweek , which did n’t give up us to produce a elaborate example of its consistence and orbital parameter . We estimate it to be between 10 and 31 meters ( 33 to 102 feet ) and should probably pass as close as 13,200 kilometers from Earth or as far as 433,200 kilometers ( 8,200 - 269,200 miles ) . Researchers are sealed that 2012 TC4 wo n’t get any stuffy than 6,800 kilometer ( 4,225 miles ) from the airfoil of our planet .
The squad hope that 2012 TC4 will become visible to the big ground - based scope in other August . This will serve to track it . find these objects depends very much on their Earth’s surface brightness , with many grave onescome incredibly closeto our planet before we can identify them . This risk and our lack of a deflexion plan have many multitude concerned about thegeneral level of preparednessthe human race has against a cosmic hit .
