How to kill an asteroid
Robin George Andrews
WW Norton & Co., $29.99
The dinosaurs met a gruesome death at the hands of an asteroid, but who’s to say that today’s Earthlings won’t suffer the same fate? Fortunately, scientists are already working hard to prevent that future. How to kill an asteroid by science journalist Robin George Andrews is a deep dive into the extremely nefarious business of thwarting a devastating asteroid.
The title of the book is a bit of a misnomer. As Andrews explains, the best strategy to save the planet from a nearby asteroid is not to blast it into space – although that’s a reasonable last option – but instead to avoid it while it’s still far beyond the neighborhood of the Earth. The physics of deflection is complicated: which space rocks are harmless and which are a real threat? Will scientists be able to detect and intercept one in time? And if we manage to deflect it, will the rock fragment turn into a gazillion deadly bullets headed for Earth?
Compared to the rest of space exploration, planetary defense has a short history, beginning as a scientific thought exercise in the 1980s and growing serious in the 1990s. Andrews does an admirable job of packing in detail and context. around the field. His thorough research takes readers around the world and through time, from the past century’s accounts of asteroids hitting Earth to the latest evidence of our asteroid-preparedness clothing.
Enter DART, short for the Double Asteroid Redirect Test, which put to the test perhaps the world’s best concept for a defensive weapon against incoming asteroids. In 2021, NASA’s mission launched a spacecraft toward Dimorpho, a distant asteroid moon that poses no threat to Earth, to see if it can be knocked off course. On September 26, 2022, the spacecraft landed on the moon, successfully removing the space rock from its orbital path (SN: 10/11/22). Andrews frames the tale of DART as a compelling disaster thriller: An asteroid is hypothetically bent on destroying Earth, and it’s up to the superhero scientists to save the world. Though full of suspense, the writing is also sometimes sharp and light.
But for all of DART’s success, How to kill an asteroid presents a grim truth: The DART mission concept is the only tried and tested defense strategy humanity currently has in its anti-asteroid arsenal. The world badly needs more. And when it comes to developing a planetary security system, we humans can be our own worst enemy.
Indeed, the real challenge is not in the science, but rather the bureaucratic hurdles to sign off on asteroid-hunting projects, Andrews explains. While humanity has a possible asteroid defense strategy, we lack a suitable asteroid detector. On the drawing board is NASA’s NEO Surveyor, a space observatory and asteroid specialist whose fate has become uncertain after a crucial budget cut in 2022. The world has also lost a key space watchdog. In addition to being an important instrument for space science, the Arecibo Observatory, which collapsed in 2020, was also one of Earth’s best watchdogs for suspicious asteroids.SN: 19.11.20).
Beyond building instruments to detect and intercept space balls, asteroid preparedness also involves mitigating geopolitical, social and economic consequences, Andrews writes. If an asteroid one day hurtles toward Earth, human fears and frailties can complicate matters. Once skywatchers sound the alarm, humanity’s collective anxiety can disrupt daily life long before the asteroid hits Earth or is successfully deflected. Experts have presented several doomsday scenarios the world may need to prepare for. For example, rampant misinformation can cause insurance fraud and stock markets to crash. Countries can launch their nuclear development programs under the guise of dropping weapons on asteroids. Other nations may take advantage of the chaos to invade their neighbors. The world could see mass migration from the projected ground zero.
However, How to kill an asteroid it is generally more hopeful than fear-inducing. It reminds us that the world is not short of ideas on how to prevent an asteroid strike. And it’s a call for a reinvestment in planetary defense programs to ensure we’re ready for the real thing. Scientists are already more than eager to help.
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