NASA warns about a deadly asteroid five days before the end of the world – the Russian Newspaper

National Agency on Aeronautics and space research of the USA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA) successfully tested the Scout system, which can detect any threat to the Earth asteroid five days before his approach to the planet, according to RIA Novosti.

To do this, use the automatic telescope PAN-STARRS. With its help, for example, failed to detect the asteroid 2016 UR36 five days before its closest approach to the Earth, calculate its diameter from 5 to 25 meters and to determine the distance at which it will close, about 1.3 distances between the Moon and our planet. Previously to notice such a small space object can be only a couple of hours before the dangerous convergence.

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And although, as they say at NASA, five days is unlikely to do something to neutralize the asteroid-killer, but at least you can calculate the place of his fall, to evaluate the implications and try to save people from this area.

In 2018, NASA plans to launch a system of satellites NEA Scout that will help ground the “scout” to fill the gaps in knowledge about asteroids like the Chelyabinsk. When such an object will approach the Earth, one of the probes will fly up to it, will make detailed images of its surface and “feel” it to investigate the structure of mineral resources and chemical composition.

Note that just recently, the Council of the Russian Academy of Sciences space was sent to Roskosmos list of promising research projects, in particular, for monitoring of dangerous asteroids. We are talking about “SODA”, which will deal with detection of only flying from the Sun and cosmic bodies ranging in size from 10 meters.

Then do not repeat the situation with the Chelyabinsk meteorite, which caught the Terrans by surprise. The fact that he couldn’t see any single telescope located on Earth. A meteor flying towards the planet from the Sun, the daytime sky, this light puts the image of the “enemy”. If we want to see it beforehand, the telescope should be placed between the Sun and Earth, giving our planet.