By 
November 25th, 2022
Image credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
China is preparing to engage in its own planetary defense initiative – a “knock ’em sock ’em” tactic to showcase how an asteroid that’s threatening to Earth can be diverted.
The planetary defense mission would take place in the next 10 years, said chief designer of China’s lunar exploration program, Wu Weiren.
Two-pronged effort
“For example, this small celestial body has a size of about 30 meters. We will launch two probes from the ground. The first one is for survey. And having studied it thoroughly after a period of survey, we will launch the other one, an impactor, which will follow our order to collide with the asteroid and hopefully divert it three or five centimeters away from its course,” Wu told China Central Television (CCTV).
Credit: NASA/Don Davis
“A deviation of three or five centimeters would change the trajectory by over 1,000 kilometers after around three months,” Wu added. “The longer the time, the bigger the change of the trajectory. So, this is a very important mission. It’s mainly to eliminate asteroids’ impacts on human or potential threats of collision with Earth.”
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