[Opinion]Armageddon

An asteroid the size of Texas is making its way into Earth. And the National Aeronautics and Space Administration decided to send a special unit of redneck oilmen to save Earth from the planet-killer. Their mission is to drill a hole on the surface of the asteroid to plant nuclear bombs.

That’s a story from science fiction Hollywood movie ‘Armageddon,’ which was produced at the time such disaster movies were popular. In “Deep Impact,” another movie about an asteroid threatening life on Earth, an effort to change the course of an asteroid with a nuclear bomb also failed.

A hit by an asteroid has not happened only in movies, however. A fireball fell to a forest in Tuguska, Siberia in June 1908. The 50 meter-wide asteroid burnt out the forest of about 2,000㎢ in an explosion that is 1000 times of the magnitude of the Hiroshima bomb.

As early as 65 million years ago, a 12km wide asteroid hit Earth and left its trace in Eukatan Peninsula in Mexico, a 195km wide crater. And scientists assume that the collision changed the climate of the planet and subsequently 70% of living creatures including dinosaurs disappeared, a hypothesis considered very convincing.

A number of small asteroids have hit Earth in fact. More than 100 traces of collisions are found around the world. The probability of asteroids striking Earth is higher with small ones orbiting an oval-shaped course. Astronomers have tracked down their movements closely in the fear of a collision.

According to their reports, if an asteroid is 7km in diameter or wider, it could devastate Earth as in the move “Deep Impact” engulfing cities along the coasts with huge tidal waves. But a hit by such a large-sized asteroid is a remorse possibility. It only happens once in millions of years, scientists point out.

In the past, it was impossible to predict a collision with an asteroid or a comet. People could only know after it actually happened. These days, however, scientists can carry out orbit calculations to work out the probability.

Astronomers recently warned that a massive asteroid (2km wide) could hit Earth in just 17 years` time. According to the experts working at Lincoln Near-Orbit Objects Center in New Mexico, the asteroid will collide with Earth at a speed of 28km per second on February 1, 2019. It’s like a paragraph from those doomsday predictions. Then, do we have to try to shoot nuclear bombs to change its course, or go and plant an apple tree? It remains to be seen.

parkyk@donga.com