SPACE – After devastating the Côte d’Azur in 2013, destroying Dhaka in 2015 and saving Tokyo in 2017, a major international asteroid impact simulation exercise ended this Friday, May 3 in a cataclysm: the metropolis of New York destroyed.
Despite eight years of preparation, humans attempted to deflect the asteroid but failed. The exercise has become a regular meeting place for the international community known as “planetary defense”.
This new edition began Monday, April 29 at a conference near Washington, with the following initial warning: an asteroid 100 or 300 meters in diameter has been spotted and has, according to initial rough calculations, a probability of 1% to strike Earth on April 29, 2027.
Political disagreements behind the destruction of New York
Every day, some 200 astronomers, engineers and emergency specialists received new information, made proposals and waited for decisions from the masters of the game, designed by an aerospace engineer from NASA. Over the months, the probability of the asteroid crashing into Earth has increased to 10% … then to 100%.
NASA decides to send a probe in 2021 to closely observe the threat. In December 2021, astronomers are definite: the asteroid is heading straight for the Denver (Colorado) region, which will be totally destroyed.
The great space powers (United States, Europe, Russia, China, Japan) decide to build six “impactor” vessels: probes which must strike the asteroid to deviate its trajectory. Manufacturing takes time, orbits must be coordinated and impacts are not expected until August 2024.
Three impactors successfully hit the asteroid. But a piece of 60 meters continues to rush towards the Earth. The United States plans to send a final mission with a nuclear charge that would help deflect the rock – which saved Tokyo last year – but political disagreements stop the project.
Ten million people to be evacuated and huge costs
It only remains to prepare: six months before, we refine the impact zone: the New York region. Two months before, astronomers are certain: the bolide will destroy the city, enter the atmosphere at 69,000 kilometers per hour and explode at an altitude of fifteen kilometers above Central Park. The explosive energy will be 1000 times that of Hiroshima.
The blast will destroy everything within a 15-kilometer radius – the “no-survival” zone – scientists report. Manhattan will be a field of ruins. The windows will explode up to 45 km around. The damage will extend up to 68 km.
The issues raised are endless. How to evacuate ten million people? Regular hurricanes have shown the difficulty of the task. “Two months may not be enough to evacuate. There will be columns of moving trucks, ”says Brandy Johnson, representative of“ angry residents ”.
Who will pay? Who will welcome the refugees? How to protect nuclear and chemical installations, works of art? And how will citizens behave in the face of an end-of-the-world situation? “If you know your house will be destroyed in six months, do you continue to pay off your loan?” Asks Victoria Andrews of the NASA planetary defense office.
Europe targeted in 2021?
The participants debated at length insurance and legal issues: the United States saved Denver, but it inadvertently destroyed New York.
“In this situation, according to international law, the United States, as the launching country, will be under an obligation to compensate, even if it is not at fault,” says Alissa Haddaji of Harvard, coordinator of a group of fifteen space lawyers created to answer these questions.
The exercise is of course extreme: “It’s very unlikely,” says Paul Chodas, the American engineer who designed it. “But we wanted all the issues to be exposed and discussed”.
Astronomers took the opportunity to defend the NeoCam space telescope project, which would make it possible to better locate asteroids and react earlier in the event of a threat. In fineDespite the detailed discussions of the apocalypse, there was some excitement at this conference of asteroid enthusiasts.
If such an asteroid threatened to crash one day on our planet, “it would be an interesting international event for scientists, wouldn’t it?” Notes Brandy Johnson. The next exercise will take place in 2021 in Vienna. Paul Chodas does not exclude that Europe is this time in the crosshairs.
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