Russians want to change course of Apophis asteroid

Posted on Wednesday, December 30 2009 @ 19:25 CET by Thomas De Maesschalck
The Russian space agency announced it will soon hold a closed-door meeting to work on a plan for saving humanity from a possible collision with Apophis, a 350 metres long asteroid that could hit our planet in 2036.

While NASA claims Apophis has a very low risk of hitting the Earth in 2036 (around 1 in 233,000), Anatoly Perminov, the head of Russia's Roscosmos space agency, believes the asteroid has a high impact probability. He described an impact of Aphophis would result in unimaginable loss of life, catastrophic climate change and the creation of a new desert roughly the size of France.
"We will soon hold a closed meeting of our collegium, the science-technical council to look at what can be done" to prevent the asteroid Apophis from slamming into the planet in 2036, Anatoly Perminov told Voice of Russia radio.

"We are talking about people's lives," Perminov was quoted by news agencies as telling the radio station.

"Better to spend a few hundred million dollars to create a system for preventing a collision than to wait until it happens and hundreds of thousands of people are killed," he said.
Perminov assured the project will not use nuclear explosions, the idea is to create a new space apparatus designed solely for the purpose of diverting a killer asteroid. A couple of strategies that may be used to deflect the course of an asteroid are discussed at Wikipedia.

Source: AFP


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Thomas De Maesschalck

Thomas has been messing with computer since early childhood and firmly believes the Internet is the best thing since sliced bread. Enjoys playing with new tech, is fascinated by science, and passionate about financial markets. When not behind a computer, he can be found with running shoes on or lifting heavy weights in the weight room.



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