Chinese researchers want to send more than 20 of China's largest rockets to practice turning away a sizable asteroid - a technique that may eventually be crucial if a killer rock is on a collision course with Earth. Sometime between late 2021 to early 2022, the United States will launch a robotic spacecraft to intercept two asteroids relatively close to Earth, reports Reuters. At China's National Space Science Center, researchers found in simulations that 23 Long March 5 rockets hitting simultaneously could deflect a large asteroid from its original path by a distance 1.4 times the Earth's radius. China's National Space Science Center cited a recently published study in Icarus, a journal on planetary science. Long March 5 rockets are key to China's near-term space ambitions - from delivering space station modules to launching probes to the Moon and Mars.

Source: Hindustan Times July 07, 2021 04:07 UTC