At the moment of maximum approach of the asteroid 2010 XC15 to the Earth, astronomers will study it with the famous HAARP complex. It is expected that long, powerful radio waves will be able to penetrate beneath the surface of the celestial body and allow to determine its internal structure. Such observations will be one of the elements of the future protection of the Earth from the asteroid threat.
It poses no threat to us: the minimum distance at which it passes the celestial body will exceed 770 thousand kilometers - nearly twice the lunar orbit. But this event will take advantage of scientists from the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) and NASA to test a new approach to the study of asteroids - with the antennas of the famous complex HAARP. Those plans are announced in a UAF press release.
Deployed in Alaska array of antennas HAARP used to study the upper atmosphere and auroras, the interaction of ionosphere with the powerful radio emissions and characteristics of the propagation of radio waves in this environment. Similar projects are working in Europe and Russia. All of them are of particular interest to conspiracy theorists, who claim as if such systems are used to control the weather and even the human mind.
HAARP antennas will direct their enormous energy far beyond the atmosphere to the asteroid 2010 XC15 for the first time on December 27. Radiation from radio telescopes is constantly being used to study such celestial bodies, to determine their trajectories, shape and other important characteristics. However, HAARP will use much longer wavelengths for this purpose, with a frequency of only about 9.6 megahertz. This is expected to allow a view not of the asteroid's surface, but of its internal structure.
The experiment is seen as one element of the future protection of our planet from the asteroid threat. Recall not so long ago, impact probe NASA DART has successfully demonstrated how such a defense: when collided with a satellite of the asteroid Dimorph, it markedly changed its trajectory. Someday such vehicles will be able to take more massive and larger celestial bodies off the dangerous path.
The success of such a collision depends on accurately determining the trajectory of the asteroid threatening Earth, as well as the right choice of impact point. It is with this choice that observations such as those taking place today at the HAARP complex can help. Radio waves reflected from the depth of 2010 XC15 will allow scientists to determine its internal structure and density distribution. Perhaps someday similar work will help save, if not the entire planet, then many lives on it.
