The Hayabusa spacecraft (Japan) has just transmitted signals regarding an asteroid flying near the Earth.
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The Itokawa orbit is 250 million km away from Earth |
This information was announced by scientists at a scientific workshop held in Texas (USA). They also proposed ways to prevent asteroid impacts on Earth.
Professor Don Yeomans, a scientist in charge of the Near-Earth Object (NEO) program at NASA, stated: “If we want to prevent a threatening object from entering Earth’s orbit, we must first understand its nature and structure. We have the technological capability to deal with them, but we need to know how to understand them.”
The asteroid, named Itokawa, may have formed from the collision of two larger bodies. Its structure resembles that of most meteorite fragments found on Earth. Itokawa is covered by a layer of porous material, with some areas as thick as 2 meters. Itokawa contains up to 40% voids, which hold the factors that formed it.
“Itokawa formed over a span of a few million years, so it can be said to be relatively young,” said Jun’ichiro Kawaguchi, the Hayabusa project director.
Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientists believe that the Itokawa asteroid is an excellent research target. This is because the asteroids threatening Earth are usually smaller than Itokawa, while there are not many larger asteroids.
Scientists have proposed launching a nuclear missile at the asteroid and detonating it enough to alter the asteroid’s trajectory.
Trần Nam
