China is about to verify the feasibility of its asteroid defense plan, marking another breakthrough in technological strength.

China to Verify Feasibility of Asteroid Defense Plan

According to a report from CCTV News, at the Third Deep Space Detection Tiantu International Conference, Wu Weiren, the chief designer of the Chang'e lunar exploration program, revealed that China is about to conduct a kinetic impact demonstration mission on an asteroid to verify the feasibility of an asteroid defense plan.

This news may sound like science fiction to many: Have China's scientific and technological advances really become so astonishing in recent years? Can we now verify an asteroid defense plan?

In fact, if we have followed the papers published by Chinese researchers, we can find that "how to defend against asteroid impacts" has been a topic that Chinese scientists have been discussing and studying for a long time.

According to earlier interviews by CCTV News and summaries of papers published by Chinese researchers, there are currently three main ways to deal with asteroids in orbit: using kinetic impact to force the asteroid to change course or break it apart, using nuclear weapons to bomb it, and using traction technology to change the asteroid's orbit.

Among these three options, the kinetic impact method is the most mature and effective, which is also the direction that Chinese scientists are currently striving to explore and verify.

For this, Wu Weiren, the chief designer of the Chang'e lunar exploration program, summarized it as 12 characters: "hit accurately, push effectively, evaluate effectively, explain clearly."

This means that accurate calculations of the target asteroid's situation, the energy, timing, and impact point required to hit or push the asteroid must be made to ensure that "hit accurately, push effectively";

"Evaluate effectively, explain clearly" refers to assessing the impact effect after hitting the asteroid and monitoring the risk of the asteroid changing orbit or breaking up, to ensure that the asteroid fragments do not cause secondary harm to Earth.

Original source: www.toutiao.com/article/1842477550535688/

Statement: This article represents the views of the author.