Asteroid Strike May Threaten Future Settlers on Mars, NASA Says

Asteroids has been considered one of the greatest threats not just to Earth but even to Mars.

One example of this phenomena in space is on Earth. On December 2018 a 33-foot meteor exploded over water in the Bering sea. On June 2018, a smaller one exploded in Botswana causing meteorites in the desert. The biggest was 60-feet which exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia, creating a shockwave to shatter buildings and hurt 1000 people.

These are rare occurrences that may happen once or twice a century. Lindley Johnson, NASA's Planetary Defense Officer said that is rare for an asteroid to hit the ground and when it does, there's a 90% chance that it will hit unpopulated areas.

Astronaut and spacecraft are vulnerable to asteroid strikes

When the first space expeditions leave Earth for Mars and the moon, they can die in many ways with risks like radiation poisoning, isolation, communication delays, and cramped environments closed in by hostile conditions. If man becomes a spacefaring race, how sure are we that alien asteroid strikers can be avoided at all?

Johnson added that impact is inevitable during space flight, there is no such thing as open space. Once any ship leaves the earth's protection, there's one in a million chance of catastrophic asteroid collision.

We've learned to know what can hit us from space

At this point, experts have the bare technical know-how when it comes to planet-killers or small objects in space that can harm a small spacecraft. An uncountable number of space objects like asteroids are out there, they roam the space highways for millions of years, before hitting anything, some even come close to the Earth.

Also read: Scientists Still Trying to Find Life Existence in Mars

An alarm is sound for Near-Earth Object (NEOs) that can damage the Earth if it comes as close as 30 million miles. If that NEO will be bigger than 450 feet, comes to a intersecting orbit with within about 20 Earth-to-Moon distances are moved up to Potentially Hazardous Asteroid status.

Destination moon

The moon is the closest body to go to set up a lunar base, but it will be a target for any large or small asteroid. Without an atmosphere to slow the meteor down, it will strike it hard. In 2016, a study stated that 200 craters were found by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

One more danger is secondaries as the debris cause by meteorite strikes. Another danger is the faster speed of meteorite bits that can hit the ground at high velocity or faster.

Eric Christiansen, NASA's head of Micrometeorite and Orbital Debris Protection added,"They're much slower than the meteors, but they're still fast enough that we have to worry about them."

NASA wants to setup a base on the moon to get to the red planet Mars. It will be a good place to test technologies that will allow as to similar mars.