(Gizmodo) – NASA, FEMA, and other national and international agencies are once again gearing up for a hypothetical asteroid impact preparedness scenario. They hope to learn the best strategies for responding to a potential strike, starting from the moment a threatening asteroid is first detected by astronomers. Next week marks the start of the International Academy of Astronautics Planetary Defense Conference. As part of this conference, NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office will team up with
other partners to perform a “tabletop exercise” on how they’d handle the news of a (fictional) asteroid on a collision course with Earth. Again, the following is fictional. On March 26, 2019, astronomers discover an asteroid in the night sky, far dimmer than Pluto to their telescopes. They name it 2019 PDC. Initially, it appears that the asteroid’s eccentric orbit bring it within approximately 18 times the Moon’s distance from the Earth, with a chance of hitting the Earth at one in 50,000 in 2027. READ MORE
