"These exercises ultimately help the planetary-defense community communicate with each other and with our governments to ensure we are all coordinated should a potential impact threat be identified in the future," said NASA planetary defense officer Lindley Johnson in a press release.
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00:00In news from an alternate reality, Europe was decimated by an asteroid last week.
00:08Experts failed to prevent a theoretical doomsday during a training exercise conducted by NASA
00:13at the 2021 Planetary Defense Conference.
00:17Participants were fed info about the space rock's size and trajectory, and given six
00:21months' time frame to come up with a plan.
00:23Their findings?
00:24Six months' warning with Earth's current technologies won't cut it to prepare for
00:28an impact scenario, though deflecting or destroying the asteroid with a nuke could be enough to
00:33quote, reduce the risk of impact damage.
00:35By the time scientists calculated the odds and location of the impact, they realized
00:40there was not enough time to launch such a mission.
00:42By day four of the exercise, or a week before impact, the scientists estimated a 99% chance
00:48the asteroid would hit between Germany, Austria, and the Czech Republic, delivering as much
00:53energy as a large nuclear bomb.
00:55While no asteroids that we know of pose this sort of threat to Earth currently, it doesn't
00:59hurt to prepare, especially since an estimated two-thirds of asteroids large enough to do
01:04serious damage remain undiscovered, according to NASA.