What if an asteroid was about to hit Earth? Scientists ponder question

COLLEGE PARK: Here’s a hypothetical: a telescope detects an asteroid between 100 and 300 meters in diameter racing through our solar system at 14 kilometers per second, 57 million kilometers from Earth.

Astronomers estimate a one percent risk the space rock will collide with our planet on April 27, 2027. What should we do?It’s this potentially catastrophic scenario that 300 astronomers, scientists, engineers and emergency experts are applying their collective minds to this week in a Washington suburb, the fourth such international effort since 2013.

“We have to make sure people understand this is not about Hollywood,” said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine as he opened the sixth International Planetary Defense Conference at the University of Maryland’s campus in College Park. Countries represented include China, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Russia and the United States.

The idea that the planet Earth may one day have to defend itself against an asteroid used to elicit what experts call a “giggle factor.”But a meteor that blew up in the atmosphere over Russia on February 15, 2013, helped put an end to the sneers.

On that morning, a 65-foot (20-meter) asteroid appear out of nowhere over the southern Urals, exploding 14 miles (23 kilometers) above the town of Chelyabinsk with such force that it shattered the windows of thousands of buildings. A thousand people were injured by the shards.