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NEWS > SCIENCE > SCIENTISTS FEAR SPACE JUNK DEFENCE NOT ENOUGH TO STOP ASTEROIDS
SCIENTISTS FEAR SPACE JUNK DEFENCE NOT ENOUGH TO STOP ASTEROIDS
November 16 2009
Washington, D.C. – As far as heavenly bodies go, the Earth is pretty lucky. In the ongoing search for life outside our planet scientists are starting to realize just how lucky we are, situated just the right distance from the sun, and with a big brother 
protecting us from cosmic collisions. That big brother is Jupiter, whose massive gravitational pull helps to shield us from asteroid and meteor collisions which would otherwise render the planet dead. Occasionally though some bodies slip through, such as the one that helped destroy the dinosaurs, but all in all we’ve had it pretty good.
One of the ongoing concerns facing scientists as they explore the near regions of space is the fear that yet another major body might make it past the defence that Jupiter and the other outer planets provide and ultimately colliding with Earth, destroying life as we know it. That fear came to a head earlier this month when a massive asteroid exploded in the atmosphere above Indonesia, releasing an explosion the equivalent of 50,000 tonnes of TNT. It has for the first time shaken the science community’s faith in using the massive amount of space junk swirling around the planet as a defence against cataclysm.
“50,000 tonnes of TNT is approximately three times as powerful an explosion as the one that destroyed Hiroshima. The incident over Indonesia would not have been an extinction level even but would likely have killed millions had it hit land in that area of the world. If it had hit in the Pacific many millions more would have been killed by Tsunamis,” said astronomer Peter Brown of the University of Western Ontario. “In this case the explosion caused no damage because it was 15 to 20 kilometres above the surface of the planet but the next time we might not be so lucky. This incident proves that this is a very real threat that the governments of the world need to look at in order to prevent total destruction. Simply letting junk pile up isn’t going to cut it, obviously.”
Of the tens of millions of pieces of space debris currently revolving around the planet the majority are minute in size which provide little or no resistance to an asteroid or meteor which can hurtle through space at the speed of up to 70 kilometres a second.
“The truth is there hasn’t been a major collision in 65 million years and we are more than overdue for one. Inevitably something will break through and collide with Earth and because of our limitations we might not see it coming until it’s too late,” said Scrape TV Science analyst Dr. Howard Poe. “In fact we might not even know it until the atmosphere started to burn away or the nuclear winter started to take hold. In the latter case, plants and animal life would begin to die within days and humanity might only be able to survive for a few months until all of our stores were depleted. So you can see it would be problematic.”
It’s not clear how long the human race will survive without a major cataclysm but it’s believed it would be significantly longer than in a nuclear winter.
“For the last fifty years we have been leaving junk behind in space and while it is true that we haven’t been pummelled by a meteor or asteroid the two things might be coincidental. In fact, it’s very likely that the two things are coincidental. Even the biggest pieces, like spent rocket stages, likely wouldn’t stop something that large,” continued Poe. “It’s time we started looking at other options in order to avoid a potential cataclysm and the eradication of all life on the planet. Likely no matter how much junk we throw into orbit we won’t be able to stop any determined body.”
Scientists also note that because space bodies have no olfactory senses, and junk in space does not decay, that the scent alone would not be enough to keep the intruders at bay.
Anna Phillips, Science Correspondent
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