(ORDO NEWS) — At the moment of closest approach of the asteroid 2010 XC15 with the Earth, astronomers explore it using the famous HAARP complex.
It is expected that long powerful radio waves will be able to penetrate under the surface of a celestial body and will allow to determine its internal structure.
Such observations will become one of the elements of the future protection of the Earth from the asteroid threat.
Today, December 27, 2022, asteroid 2010 XC15 will approach the Earth. It does not pose any threat to us: the minimum distance at which a celestial body will pass will exceed 770 thousand kilometers – almost twice the lunar orbit.
But scientists from the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) and NASA will use this event to test a new approach to asteroid research – using the antennas of the famous HAARP complex. Such plans are reported in a UAF press release.
The array of HAARP antennas deployed in Alaska is used to study the upper atmosphere and auroras, the interaction of the ionosphere with powerful radio emission, and the propagation of radio waves in this environment.
All of them are of particular interest to conspiracy theorists, who claim that such systems are used to control the weather and even the human mind.
On December 27, HAARP’s antennas will beam their enormous energy far beyond the atmosphere for the first time, to the asteroid 2010 XC15.
Radiation from radio telescopes is constantly used to study such celestial bodies, 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.
It is expected that this will allow us to consider not the surface of the asteroid, but its internal structure.
The experiment is seen as one of the elements of the future protection of our planet from the asteroid threat.
Recall that not so long ago, the NASA DART impact probe successfully demonstrated how such a defense can work: colliding with the satellite of the asteroid Dimorph, it noticeably changed its trajectory. Someday, such devices will be able to derail more massive and larger celestial bodies from a dangerous path.
The success of such a collision depends on the exact determination of the trajectory of the asteroid that threatens the Earth, as well as on the correct choice of the impact point.
It is with this choice that observations like those taking place today at the HAARP complex can help.
Reflected from the depths of 2010 XC15, radio waves 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.
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