If you were online this morning, you might have come across reports about the newest existential threat to humanity: an asteroid called 2022 AP7, sometimes known as the “planet killer.”
Fortunately for us, Scott Sheppard at the Carnegie Institution for Science claims that 2022 AP7 “has no probability to hit the Earth today.” In a group of three “quite huge” asteroids that were hidden by the Sun’s glare (the other two are not dangerous), he and his worldwide team of colleagues discovered 2022 AP7.
Every five years, 2022 AP7 completes one round of the Sun and currently crosses Earth’s orbit when Earth is on the other side of the Sun from it. Its motion will eventually synchronize with Earth’s and it will pass much closer by, although this will take millennia.
The Near-Earth Object Surveyor is quite likely to identify new objects and aid in characterizing a huge number of objects, considerably enhancing our understanding of hazards.
The secret is to locate as many things as you can, classify them, monitor the hazards, and prepare as far in advance as you can for a redirection mission. It is a remarkable achievement of science and engineering that all of these components of planetary defense are now practical. We have never before in human history had such skills.
