This time it is Central Russia, the Chelyabinsk region, 1500km away from Moscow. The town is home to many factories and a nuclear power plant. On Friday 15th February 2013, it witnessed a fireball streaked through the clear morning sky, followed by loud bangs. The impact on mountains injured many people, as the shockwave blew out windows and rocked buildings. Most of those hurt suffered cuts and bruises and many remained in hospital. This “strange thing” was later declared as part of a large meteoroid partially burned up in the lower atmosphere, resulting in a number of meteorites falling earthwards.
Fig. 1 A victim after receiving treatment for injuries- Courtesy Daily News
Is it Very New to Mankind???
Of course not!!! …. Generally it is believed that the “natural disasters” on earth emanate from the surface and subsurface of earth. However, one potential threat to our planet is from the residents of upper atmosphere. The interplanetary space around the earth is littered with dust and materials, produced during creation of the solar system. Among these objects, rocky metallic asteroids and comets move with ferocious speed around the Sun in Kuiper belt and between Jupiter and Mars, respectively. Sometimes, due to the collision, they change their paths and move towards earth. Although, the earth is shielded by different layers of the atmosphere which vaporizes most of the asteroids but larger objects may survive the atmosphere and strike the earth. These are called Near Earth Objects (NEOS). We, the humans, working routinely in daily life, are unaware of the fact that in the far reaches of space there are potential threats to our beloved planet in the form of asteroids and meteoroids. These objects strike the earth every now and then, very seldom noticed. These NEOs usually land in water, thanks to the 2/3 ratio of water on this planet. These strikes some time bring enormous changes in the environment of the planet and are normally considered beneficial. It is believed, 65 million years ago, an asteroid of a size of small city struck in Mexico and wiped away the dinosaurs from the planet.
Are we on the hit list as well????
Does it happen in Pakistan? The answer is “YES”. This happens in routine all around the world, and last year we have witnessed one event in our country as well. The incident happened in May 2012, when a NEO fell in sindh province near ladki . It was recovered, and later declared as meteoroid. But what happened afterwards? We learnt any lesson? Did we find something about the recovered meteoroid? Are we able to say the process by which the meteoroid had gone through before hitting the earth? Are there similar meteoroids moving around which may hit us again? The answer to all these questions is same which is “nobody knows”.
Fig. 2 The meteoroid recovered from Ladki- Courtesy Engr. Jabbar
The meteoroid fell in Ladki was an exciting opportunity to understand the mechanism through which these meteoroids and asteroids come to earth. The event should have been used to spread knowledge and awareness in our government and society about the importance of these eye opening events before any major collapse. However, no serious efforts were made.
How to protect ourselves??
The answer is, “observe and track” these potential killers which are roaming around the earth atmosphere. Prof. Russel Schweickart is well known or his efforts through B612 program to enforce NASA and USA government to observe the potential risky asteroids and meteoroids. Now the Near Earth Object Program of NASA virtually tracks everything which revolves the earth.
The B612 program of NASA gives detailed guidelines about diverting the path of meteoroid to avoid the impact with earth. The most important part of this program is development of prior information system which can only be possible if potential threatening asteroids and meteoroids are identified and tracked carefully. A similar kind of program is required in our Pakistan which is now the sixth most populated country in the world. However, the shouts of tracking these near earth objects (NEO) in Pakistan may not be considered seriously in current circumstances where we feel that terrorism, water shortage, power cut etc. are more serious issues. And when we suffer from natural disasters, we normally declare it as “act of nature” and believe that every part of the world suffers from these disasters. To some extent it is right, but severity of damage in developed countries is lowered by spreading the prior information of these events.
Irrespective of our problems, these potential killers are continuously roaming around the earth. But are we prepared to defend our people and important assets from these enemies? The good thing about these NEOs is that they can be well traced and predicted by simple calculations. The presence of asteroids and meteoroids are useful for a balanced solar system. However, awareness about NEOs is crucial for our survival, so it’s better to find these asteroids and meteoroids – or they may find us one day.
About the author
Dr. Muhammad Kashif Khan holds PhD in Materials Engineering from UK and currently working as Postdoctoral Research Associate in China. He can be reached at kashoo@engineer.com .