Don't worry, this is just a 'drill'.

Lynda

From reader Robert..

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snip

Chinese researchers want to send more than 20 rockets from the country to practise diverting asteroids away from Earth.

Scientists at China’s National Space Science Centre found in simulations that 23 Long March 5 rockets, which weigh 900 tonnes when they leave the planet, hitting simultaneously could divert an asteroid from its original path by nearly 9,000 kilometres – 1.4 times the Earth’s radius.

The Long March 5B rocket was also the type that was infamously left free-falling by China in May this year, traveling around the world every 90 minutes – too fast for space agencies to tell where it is going to land. Fortunately, it disintegrated over the Indian Ocean.

The probability of an asteroid colliding with Earth is low but one, the 78 billion kilogram Bennu, has been targeted for investigation.

Bennu is classified as a B-type asteroid, which means it contains a lot of carbon along with various other minerals, formed over 4.5 billion years ago. As a primordial artifact that has been preserved by the vacuum of space, the asteroid could contain molecules that developed when life was first evolving on Earth. It might also, ironically, be the end of life on Earth.