New York: US space agency NASA in a hypothetical exercise said the humanity is not adequately prepared to prevent the 72% chance of a potentially hazardous asteroid hitting the Earth.
The space agency in its official report said it had conducted the fifth biennial Planetary Defense Interagency Tablet Exercise in April, and on June 20 it opened the summary of the exercise held at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, according to NDTV.
Almost 100 representatives from various US government agencies and international collaborators took part in the tabletop exercise alongside NASA.
The exercise was carried out, nevertheless there is no significant threat to Earth in the foreseeable future, to evaluate the Earth's ability to respond effectively to a potentially hazardous asteroid.
The hypothetical exercise offered valuable insights into risks, response options alongside opportunities for collaboration, according to NASA.
Lindley Johnson, the planetary defence officer emeritus at NASA Headquarters in Washington, said that “The uncertainties in these initial conditions for the exercise allowed participants to consider a particularly challenging set of circumstances. A large asteroid impact is potentially the only natural disaster humanity has the technology to predict years in advance and take action to prevent.”
During the exercise, according to the Tabletop exercise summary, the participants assessed potential national and global response to a hypothetical scenario of a never-before-detected asteroid with a ‘72% chance of hitting Earth in approximately 14 years’.
The asteroid to hit the Earth hypothetically is on ‘12 July 2038 (14.25 years warning time).’
The summary also highlighted gaps in response, “Decision-making processes and risk tolerance not understood. Limited readiness to quickly implement needed space missions. Timely global coordination of messaging needs attention. Asteroid-impact disaster management plans are not defined.”
The tabletop exercise is notably the first to use data from NASA's DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) mission.
DART, the first in-space demonstration of a technology for preventing potential asteroid impacts, confirmed that a kinetic impactor could change the trajectory of an asteroid, according to NASA.