Seminar

Avoiding Armageddon: Long-Term Asteroid Orbit Deflection Optimization

September 20, 2018

Siegfried Eggl

Current technology would in principle allow humankind to avert catastrophic collisions between asteroids and our planet. Sub-kilometer sized asteroids that could devastate a population center may, for instance, be diverted using so-called “Kinetic Impactor” spacecraft. The latter would transfer momentum to the asteroid through a high-velocity collision well before the asteroid’s predicted Earth-impact. Differences in asteroid shape and composition, however, cause the magnitude and direction of the delivered momentum to be uncertain. Without accurate information on where an asteroid is “parked” after a deflection attempt, however, the same object may become a concern for planetary defense once more at a later date. In the worst case, the target asteroid enters a so-called “gravitational keyhole,” retaining a high probability to collide with our planet. How to best target an asteroid during a kinetic deflection maneuver so as to minimize the chances of an Earth impact in the foreseeable future is the main topic of my presentation. Implications for NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission concept are also discussed.

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