Experimental shield of meteorites for Earth

Scientists are trying to find a way to protect the fragile Earth from giant meteorites roaming the Milky Way.

With funding of 4 million euros from the EU and 1.8 million euros from the Science Institutes, NEOShield project is expected to be completed in three years. The German Space Center will build a test guard ship. Then, if more money is poured, this ship will be launched into space in 2020. Some ideas have been mentioned as shooting meteorites with explosives or rockets before they can threaten Left soil, or use gravity to alter their path.

There are thousands of large and dozens of meteors
Thousands of small meteors can "stray" near Earth

However, this project is somewhat late to deal with a meteorite about 400 times larger than London will flutter over Earth next week.

According to DailyMail , this meteorite (433) Eros is about 30km long, 9.6km wide and 9.6km high. However, despite the huge size, (433) Eros is not expected to pose much of a threat to the Earth and lies far from the moon's orbit.

Most recently, a large meteorite sized bus also flew "close to the Earth" on the morning of January 28. According to NASA estimates, 2012 BX34 is only about 36,750 miles from Earth, equal to one fifth of the distance from Earth to the moon.

"Mission feasible"

'A lot of ideas have been proposed. But until now, most of them are just a single individual or research institute so it is difficult to pursue to the end , 'said Alan Harris, team leader on Spiegel Online.

For example, using explosives to bombard meteors is said to be 'the last resort, desperate'.

'We want to introduce people to a feasible mission, within human ability. It is likely that it will be combining gravity with a dynamo to push the meteorite away. In other words, it will be a shield to protect the Earth from space. "