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Blasteroid ; MISSILE STRIKE PLAN TO KNOCK SPACE ROCK OFF EARTH COLLISION

Posted on: Saturday, 17 July 2004, 06:00 CDT

EUROPEAN space bosses will launch a missile strike on an asteroid to see if it can be deflected off its path.

The attack will test if it is possible to avert the mass destruction and possible extinction of life on this planet if a large asteroid hit us.

Just such an impact is thought to have killed off the dinosaurs some 65 million years ago.

Scientists have calculated even a small space rock hitting Earth would be devastating.

The mission, named Don Quijote, is planned for launch between 2010 and 2015.

Andrea Milani, an asteroid expert at the University of Pisa, in Italy, said: "We want to investigate the internal structure of an asteroid, and at the same time develop and test the technology necessary, in a worst case scenario, to deflect a sizeable asteroid."

Two spacecraft, Sancho and Hidalgo, will be dispatched to an asteroid about 550 yards across. Sancho would arrive first and orbit the asteroid for seven months, sending probes to the surface that would measure the effect of the second probe Hidalgo smashing into it at 22,370mph.

The impact is unlikely to destroy the asteroid, but may be enough to slow it or change its orbit. Sancho would then move in to observe.

Matt Genge, an asteroid expert at Imperial College, London, said: "Can we change its orbit by less than a centimetre per second?

"If we ever find an asteroid on collision with Earth at some time in the future, whether it is 10 orbits away or 20 orbits away, just giving it a small nudge will make it miss the Earth."

Next July NASA's Deep Impact mission will slam a copper probe into a comet for research.

The fictional Don Quijote, by Spanish writer Cervantes, tilted at windmills and is known for his noble but futile actions.

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