"This is not Hollywood and not a movie": the head of NASA warned of a real threat to the Earth

The head of NASA warned of a real threat to the Earth, which is represented by meteorites.

Фото: Depositphotos

Speaking at a planetary defense conference in Washington, DC, NASA administrator Jim Brydenstein warned that the risk associated with meteoric accidents is not taken seriously.

"It's not about Hollywood, it's not about movies, it's about ultimately protecting the only planet," he said.

Photo: NASA

Brydenstein pointed to a meteorite exploded over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk in the 2013 year, which was 30 times the energy of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima and injured about 1500 people. In total, after 16 hours after the crash, NASA discovered an even larger object that approached Earth, but did not fall on it, he said.

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“I wish I could tell you that these events are extremely unique, but they are not,” Bridenstine said. These events are not uncommon - they happen. We need to make sure that we characterize, detect, track all near-Earth objects that could pose a threat to the world."

According to scientific modeling systems, such cases are expected to occur once in 60 years, but Brydenstein noted that destructive meteorites had fallen to Earth three times in the last century.

LIVE: Speaking at the #PlanetaryDefense Conference https://t.co/uvjuqc6thj

- Jim Bridenstine (@JimBridenstine) April 29, 2019

In 2018, the White House published an action plan according to which NASA should detect, track and characterize 90 percent of near-earth objects with a diameter of 140 meters (460 feet), but on Monday Brydenstein acknowledged that the space agency had to go a long way to complete the task.

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“We want to interact with a large number of international partners who can join us in this effort. We want more systems on the surface of the Earth capable of detecting and tracking these objects, and we want to be able to transfer all this data into a single operating system so that in the end we have the best and most accurate data that we can get. ” .

Earlier this month, NASA signed a contract with SpaceX Ilona Mask, according to which, the company will provide launch services for the mission of the Agency for testing the Double Asteroid Redirection (DART). The 69 million-dollar mission, which is expected to launch in 2021, will test the Earth’s ability to deflect an asteroid by colliding a high-speed spacecraft with it.

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