NASA's meteorite hunt mission failed

An internal investigation by the US Aeronautics Agency (NASA) shows that the agency has seriously failed the program to hunt down meteorites capable of hitting Earth.

According to Reuters, NASA Inspector General Paul Martin yesterday released a report confirming that NASA's meteorite hunting program was "too poorly managed and lacking in manpower."

It is worth mentioning that before that NASA meteorite hunting budget has increased 10 times from 4 million USD in 2009 to 40 million USD in 2014.

A hole 8 meters in diameter due to a meteorite falling down created by Chelyabinsk - (Photo: RT)

'NASA only detected 10% of dangerous meteors above 140m in diameter. With the current weaknesses, NASA will not be able to complete the task of detecting 90% of meteorites with a diameter of over 140m in 2020 as required by parliament " - the report said.

NASA's greatest success was finding 95% of meteorites with a diameter of more than 1km, capable of destroying life on Earth. However, the risk from small meteorites is very large.

In February 2013, the debris of an 18m-diameter meteorite exploding in the sky of Chelyabinsk (Russia) injured 1,000 people.

Scientists estimate the explosion power of this explosion is equivalent to 30 atomic bombs. Research shows that a meteorite attack can occur every 30 years, similar to Chelyabinsk.

Since 1998, NASA has spent $ 100 million to detect dangerous meteorites, moving at a height of 45km from the ground. As of July 2014, NASA found 11,230 meteors, including 862 large meteorites, more than 1 km in diameter.

NASA officials admitted that a new search program for dangerous meteorites would be held in September 2015.

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