China attempts to hijack an asteroid –

A Gizmodo based on his report, China is preparing for a bold experiment, even though it will take years: it will try to deflect an asteroid that is not dangerous for our planet, but is approaching the Earth, by driving something at it at high speed, which will knock it off its orbit. The Chinese mission could be launched as early as 2027, and the country’s planetary protection mission serves a dual purpose: on the one hand, it wants to prove the possibility of hijacking, and on the other hand, it wants to gather information about its origin.

China first announced the project in late 2022, with two spacecraft scheduled to launch in 2025 to target the asteroid codenamed 2019 VL5. THE Journal of Deep Space Exploration however, according to new details published in his latest article, another asteroid, 2015 XF261, has now been selected, and the launch can take place in 2027 at the earliest.

Asteroid 2015 XF261 is about 100 feet (30 meters) across and recently “encountered” Earth when it whizzed past our planet at a distance of 31 million miles (about 50 million kilometers) on Tuesday, July 9. The near-Earth asteroid routinely passes by our planet twice a year, the next such occasion will take place on February 21, 2025.

In the upcoming mission, China will send two spacecraft into orbit around the asteroid for a period of between three and six months. One spacecraft is intended to make observations to study its size, shape, composition and orbit, while its more powerful twin will slam into the asteroid in a high-speed, kinetic-energy experiment. The observation spacecraft will study the impact and its consequences for 6-12 months.

If this sounds a little familiar, it’s not only because of Hollywood movies, but also because NASA conducted a similar mission not too long ago. NASA’s DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) mission performed the operation at a smaller asteroid in September 2022. The mission targeted a small lunar particle called Dimorphos, which was orbiting a larger space rock called Didymos, and was successful. Before the DART impact, Dimorphos took 11 hours 55 minutes to orbit Didymos, which decreased to 11 hours 23 minutes after the impact. A follow-up mission will be launched in October to study the aftermath of the DART mission. Unlike NASA’s mission, it’s unclear what difference the Chinese mission will make to the asteroid and whether that would affect its distance from Earth.

By the way, of the 31,000 near-Earth asteroids discovered so far, NASA considers about 2,300 potentially dangerous, as they come within 30 million miles of our planet. The asteroid selected for the mission does not currently pose a threat to Earth, but the purpose of the test is to demonstrate a method of deflecting a space rock should it be headed for our planet in the future.