What if asteroids deviate from their usual path and directly strike Earth at lightning speed? Will it wipe out a city or will it be the end of the planet? The concerns around these giant space rocks keep the scientists working to detect the potential risk from the upcoming asteroid. Well, scientists from China have just revealed their plan to protect us from the strike of an asteroid to Earth. The surprising part is that China plans to use the Moon as a protective shield against asteroids.
Wu Weiren, chief designer of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program, mentioned in a study published in the Chinese peer-reviewed journal Scientia Sinica Information that the new project includes arranging three guardian satellites carrying loads of fuel and kinetic weapons into the moon's orbit around the Earth. But how exactly will this plan work? Can Moon really protect us from the terror of an asteroid? Read on.
The plan laid out by the Chinese scientists also includes two optical telescopes that would be built on the South and North poles to keep an eye on the space around them for any potential threats that may have missed out via the ground-based early warning network. Whenever the system will detect an asteroid with the potential to impact severe damage on Earth, the system will send one or all of its guardian satellites to intercept the asteroid within a short timeframe. Though, the time frame could be a week, but this is faster than what any large rocket launched from Earth, the Chinese team mentioned.
Wu and his team further assured that “It will have the ability to intercept incoming asteroids from all directions, and can form a defense circle about twice the distance between the moon and Earth – about 800,000 km. in diameter."
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