Chinese Asteroid Deflect Test Targets Near-Earth Object

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Headlines:

• "ESA's Hera Mission to Explore Binary Asteroid in 2026" (European Space Agency, 2023) • "NASA's DART Mission Successfully Collision-Tests Asteroid Defense" (NASA, 2021) • "China Conducts Successful Asteroid Deflection Test with Near-Earth Object" (Xinhua News, 2022) • "Asteroid to Pass Close to Earth in 2029, NASA Says" (Space. com, 2022) • "Russia to Develop Asteroid Deflection System by 2025" (TASS, 2022) • "Asteroid Hunters Detect Massive Space Rock Passing Close to Earth" (The Guardian, 2021) • "Japan's Hayabusa2 Mission Returns with Asteroid Samples" (Japan Times, 2020) • "NASA's OSIRIS-REx Mission Returns with Asteroid Bennu Samples" (NASA, 2020) • "Scientists Warn of Unprecedented Asteroid Threat to Earth" (The Telegraph, 2022) These bullet points highlight recent asteroid-related news headlines from around the world, "featuring stories on asteroid deflection tests.".. near-Earth object close approaches... and scientific missions exploring asteroids.

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China is targeting a small non-threatening near-Earth asteroid for a daring attempt to run into it at high speeds and move it off its course. The Chinese asteroid deflection test could happen as early as 2027, in a project similar to NASA's recent DART mission.

A recent paper in the Journal of Deep Space Exploration revealed new details about China's upcoming planetary defense mission, which will also serve a dual purpose and probe the ancient space rock for clues regarding its origin.

China first announced its plans to launch an asteroid deflection mission in late 2022, targeting asteroid 2019 VL5 with a pair of spacecraft launching in 2025. According to the new paper, however, China is now targeting a different asteroid, 2015 XF261, with a launch date no earlier than 2027. The target of the mission may change as China refines its launch window.

Asteroid 2015 XF261 is around 98 feet wide (30 meters) and had a recent encounter with Earth when it zipped past our planet at a distance of 31 million miles (50 million kilometers) on Tuesday, July 9. The near-Earth asteroid routinely passes by the planet twice a year, with the next flyby on February 21, 2025.

Of the 31,000 near-Earth asteroids that have been discovered, about 2,300 are considered potentially hazardous by NASA . These are asteroids that come within 30 million miles of our planet. The chosen asteroid for the mission poses no current threat to Earth, but the test aims to display a method of deflecting a space rock should one be headed towards our planet in the future.

Webb data suggests a massive dust cloud observed 20 years ago around Beta Pictoris was caused by a cataclysmic asteroid collision.