Radio waves can protect the Earth from a 500-foot SCARY asteroid? Know shocking answer

Asteroid 2010 XC15 is a 500 feet wide potentially hazardous asteroid that can one day strike the Earth. In an effort to protect the Earth from asteroids similar to this, scientists are looking at radio waves. Check details.

Know all about this unique method scientists are planning to use to protect the Earth from asteroids. (Pixabay)

Nobody can deny that one of the greatest natural threats looming above us is an asteroid strike. Just like it did to dinosaurs 65 million years ago, one big asteroid strike can destroy humanity on this planet. NASA has recognized it and that's why it conducted its Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) in 2022. And while smashing into an asteroid to change its path sounds amazing in theory, there are certain issues with it as well. And that's why scientists are now looking at radio waves to help create a better planetary defense. And its first use case has been on a 500-foot potentially hazardous asteroid that can one day smash into our planet.

The High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) is an array of 180 antennas in a remote location in Alaska which can send high-frequency radio waves into space. And after probing into the ionosphere of the Earth under US military control, the system has now been transferred to the University of Alaska. And researchers there have come up with a unique usage of this system — to save the planet from asteroids.

HAARP could aid planetary defense and protect Earth from asteroids

What HAARP intends to do is to send powerful radio waves towards asteroids in space. Then they would listen to the returning signals and try to determine what the interior of the asteroid is made up of. And why is it important? Asteroids could be made up of a vast number of materials. They could be metallic, rocky, icy or an unknown element entirely. And if NASA were to use the DART experiment to push away an asteroid, it would first need to know what the asteroid is composed of. An asteroid made of metal and an asteroid made of loosely packed dust will be affected differently when a spacecraft smashes into it.

And the researchers have recently concluded the experiment on the first asteroid, a 500-foot wide space rock, hailed potentially hazardous by NASA. Asteroid 2010 XC15 was bombarded with radio waves for 12 hours straight in late December.

“We will be analyzing the data over the next few weeks and hope to publish the results in the coming months. This experiment was the first time an asteroid observation was attempted at such low frequencies” Mark Haynes, lead investigator on the project and a radar systems engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said, reported Space.com.