Chinese researchers want to send more than 20 of the country’s largest rockets to practise deflecting asteroids away from earth

A group of Chinese researchers want to send rockets into space to practise deflecting asteroids. The researchers say the technique may become crucial in the future if an asteroid ever goes on a collision course towards earth.

China isn’t the first country to trial using rockets to prevent asteroids from plummeting into earth. The US’ NASA also plans to launch a robotic spacecraft to intercept two asteroids late this year.

Our first attempt at changing the trajectory of a celestial body

The rocket will take about a year to crash-land on the asteroids. The aim is to see how much the asteroids’ trajectory changes.

Researchers at China’s National Space Science Center found that launching enough rockets at a large asteroid could alter its path. To be exact, 23 rockets could deflect a large asteroid from its original path by a distance 1.4 times the Earth’s radius.

Asteroids larger than 1km would have global consequences

Their calculations are based on a huge asteroid orbiting the sun called Bennu. Scientists have classified Bennu as being large enough to cause ‘regional or continental damage‘.

Current estimates show there is roughly a 1% chance a 100-metre-wide asteroid would strike Earth in the next 100 years, said Professor Gareth Collins at Imperial College London.

“Something the size of Bennu colliding is about 10 times less likely,” Collins said.