British Scientists Designing Asteroid Tracker
Scientists in the United Kingdom, in an effort to track the asteroid “Apophis”, have designed a mission to track the asteroid using a small remote-sensing spacecraft called Apex (Apophis Explorer). The craft is scheduled to meet the asteroid on January 2014, and for three years shadow the object, beaming information on the size, shape, spin, and temperature back to the Earth. This data would provide the basis for modeling the asteroid’s orbit to better predict the chances of an impact with Earth.
The Apex design is to compete for a $50,000 prize from the Planetary Society, but the project’s designers are hoping the European or U.S. space agencies will be interested in carrying the feasibility study forward. The expected cost of the mission would be 500 million dollars. The entry which wins will be submitted to the space agencies to see if they would like to carry out the proposed project.
Apophis has been identified as a possible threat to the Earth, flying by in April of 2029 closer than many commercial satellites. The object, which is 980 feet wide, was thought for a time in 2004to pose a hazard, with a small chance of hitting the planet. Upon further study with ground-based telescopes it was decided that there was essentially no chance it world strike the Earth and would pass by at a distance of 22,400 miles, and a suggestion that it could hit on another pass in 2036 has been rejected.
However, because of the Yarkovksy effect, it is difficult to predict an asteroid’s orbit. This effect refers to the small acceleration experienced by an asteroid which is radiating solar energy back into space. Heat being released in one direction lightly pushes the object in the opposite direction, slightly changing the direction of flight. The amount of change is small, but over long periods of time and under certain circumstances, it could make the difference between a hit or a mis, and the close proximity to the Earth’s gravity in 2029 will affect the orbit of the asteroid as well.
Although Apophis is not thought to be a serious threat to the Earth, an object about the size of the asteroid hitting the Earth at 45,000 mph would blast a crater three miles across and could cause the deaths of millions. Scientists believe that with enough warning, such an object could be deflected away from the planet. The Apex mission is seen by its designers as an invaluable tool for more accurately predicting the path of this potentially hazardous object.
This entry was posted on Friday, August 31st, 2007 at 11:49 am and is filed under Space Agency News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
