Prompt Cast
Preventing Future Asteroid Impacts: NASA's Efforts and Advances in Planetary Defense
TLDR NASA has been working since 1998 to identify and track large asteroids that could potentially cause an extinction-level event on Earth. With the establishment of the Planetary Defense Coordination Office in 2016 and the use of dedicated telescopes and more computing power, our ability to detect and track near-Earth objects is improving, greatly reducing the chances of a catastrophic impact.
Timestamped Summary
00:00
A massive asteroid collision 66 million years ago resulted in the extinction of the dinosaurs, and today efforts are being made to prevent future asteroid impacts.
02:06
Millions of bits of rock are still floating around in the solar system and some of them can hit the Earth, with larger objects causing more damage.
03:52
Identifying and tracking large asteroids that could potentially cause an extinction-level event on Earth has been a goal of NASA since 1998, and by 2011, they had achieved the goal of identifying 90% of objects over one kilometer in diameter that cross the orbit of the Earth.
05:36
The Planetary Defense Coordination Office was established in 2016 to catalog near-earth objects and develop plans for potential impacts, and our ability to detect and track these objects is improving with dedicated telescopes and more computing power.
07:28
The Rubin Observatory and other sky survey telescopes are improving our ability to find and catalog near-Earth objects, greatly reducing the chances of a catastrophic impact.
09:11
Having enough time to prepare is crucial in order to gently nudge asteroids out of the way, as demonstrated by the Osiris-REx mission and the upcoming DART mission, which will be the first attempt at altering the course of an asteroid.
11:10
The more near-Earth objects we catalog, the longer the lead time we'll have before an impact and the easier it will be to nudge it out of the way, reducing the risk of an asteroid impact.
