“The department of preparation for Armageddon” appeared in NASA – Moskovsky Komsomolets

His task will be to protect against asteroids and other space threats

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As part of the program on detect and track asteroids, potentially dangerous for the Earth, the American aerospace agency NASA has created a division called the Division for the Coordination of planetary defense. Some have called him “the department to prepare for Armageddon”, referring to the movie “Armageddon” in 1998, in which astronauts are saving the Earth from a huge meteorite that threatens all humanity.

Photo: morguefile.com

The actual research NASA, dedicated to the search for a variety of near-Earth objects, also began in 1998. During this time, it was found about 13.5 thousand such objects wide variety of sizes, including more than 1.5 thousand – in the past year. As the representative NASA John Grands, today asteroids, representing a serious threat to our planet, it is not revealed, but such episodes as the fall of a large meteorite in Chelyabinsk in February 2015, does not allow to underestimate the potential danger.

New Front NASA will deal with tracking potentially dangerous celestial bodies, study them, and in coordination with the US government and will participate in the development of a plan of action in case a certain threat will really be fixed.

Today, 90% Near-Earth objects detected NASA, have a diameter of more than a kilometer. The current priority is declared search for comets and asteroids with a diameter of 140 meters, a little more of a football field. Studies show that today found about 25% of these are not the biggest, but, nevertheless, dangerous celestial bodies.

Asteroids and comets fly on a relatively small space standards for the distance from the Earth quite frequently. Recently we can remember at least three such episodes. December 19 last year, at a distance of 60 thousand kilometers from the planet turned asteroid called 2015 YB. December 24 oblong asteroid 2003 SD220 diameter of more than a kilometer flown by 11 million kilometers from Earth. And pretty soon, on 17 January, 110 million kilometers from Earth will be the comet C / 2013 US10 Catalina, which in the case of favorable weather conditions can be observed with the naked eye.

Recently, experts Buckingham University expressed the view that the threat of Earth may be not only space objects located within the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, and the so-called asteroids, centaurs, are from us at a much greater distance.