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A space mission to detect imminent Earth impactors

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 March 2015

G. B. Valsecchi
Affiliation:
IAPS-INAF, Roma, Italy IFAC-CNR, Sesto Fiorentino, Italy
E. Perozzi
Affiliation:
IAPS-INAF, Roma, Italy Deimos Space, Madrid, Spain
A. Rossi
Affiliation:
IFAC-CNR, Sesto Fiorentino, Italy
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One of the goals of NEO surveys is to discover Earth impactors before they hit. How much warning time is desirable depends on the size of the impactors: for the larger ones more time is needed to mount effective mitigation measures. Initially, NEO surveys were aimed at large impactors, that can have significant global effects; however, their typical time scale is orders of magnitude larger than human lifetime. At the other extreme, monthly and annual events, liberating energies of the order of 1 to 10 kilotons, are immaterial as a threat to mankind, not justifying substantial expenditure on them. Intermediate events are of more concern: in the megatons range, timescales are of the order of centuries, and the damage can be substantial. A classical example is the Tunguska event, in which a body with a diameter of about 30 to 50 m liberated about 5 megatons in the atmosphere, devastating 2 000 square kilometers of Siberian forest.

Type
Contributed Papers
Copyright
Copyright © International Astronomical Union 2015 

References

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