“So far humanity has been spared large scale catastrophe as was visited upon our previous tenants but counting upon being “lucky” is a poor strategy in the longer term.” Philip Lubin The PI in the title stands for “Pulverize It.” It’s available on the pre-press site. Lubin is a physics professor at UC Santa Barbara and is the sole author of the paper. In a paper titled “ PI: Terminal Planetary Defense,” Philip Lubin outlines what’s needed to protect Earth from asteroids without much lead time. A 105-meter asteroid can strike Earth with up to 30 Mt (megatons of TNT), the energy of a modern, large thermonuclear weapon.
Is this status quo good enough? A 105-meter asteroid won’t wipe out civilization, but it’ll still cause a lot of damage. There was nothing that could be done to mitigate the impact, and instead, the focus was turned towards civil defence and evacuations. Lubin/Experimental Cosmology Group, UCSB. White coloured points lack altitude data. It is important to note that the energy ranges of many of these events of asteroid strikes are in the ranges of tactical to strategic nuclear weapons. The February 15, 2013, Chelyabinsk 500 Kt event is clearly seen over Russia. What mitigation strategies did the attendees come up with? Map of recent 873 events greater than 0.073 Kt from April 15, 1988, to Sair burst impacts from atmospheric infrasonic sensors.
At the 2021 conference, the final mock radar observations revealed that the incoming asteroid was 105 meters across and would strike an area bordering Germany, the Czech Republic, and Austria. Teams of attendees follow the developments and come up with mitigation strategies. The most recent one was in April of 2021, and it’s the seventh one that’s been held.Īt each of these Planetary Defence conferences, a mock asteroid threat is generated, then over the course of the five-day conference, more detailed mock observations of the asteroid are revealed as fictional months pass. There’s even a bi-annual conference organized around dangerous asteroids called the Planetary Defence Conference. But while we do this important work, how are we preparing for an asteroid heading right for us? There’s lots of talk and lots of research into this.
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