Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system. Until recently, it was believed that its gravity protects the Earth from the most dangerous comets. However, recent research by Jonathan Horner of the University of New South Wales (Australia) and Barry Jones of the Open University (UK) has cast doubt on this.

The mass of Jupiter, the fifth planet from the Sun, is twice the mass of all the other planets in the solar system combined. Along with Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, it is classified as a gas giant. During great oppositions, Jupiter is visible to the naked eye and is one of the brightest objects in the sky after the Moon and Venus. This planet was known to people in ancient times: it is mentioned in Mesopotamian, Babylonian, Greek and other myths.

How did Jupiter fall into the category of our “defenders”? It all started in June 1770, when the Earth was visited by an unusual comet. It was very bright and moving at high speed.

Russian astronomer of Swedish origin Anders Johan Lexel managed to calculate the orbit of this celestial body. It turned out that the comet approached the Earth by 2.2 million kilometers, that is, it was at a distance from us that is approximately six times greater than the distance from the Earth to the Moon. And to this day it is believed that this is the closest comet to us in the entire history of astronomical observations.

Lexel found out that the period of its revolution around the Sun is about six years, but in 1776 the Earth and the celestial guest will find themselves on opposite sides of the star. So the next visit of the comet, which received its name in honor of the same Lexel, was expected in 1782. However, she never appeared and was never seen again.

Why weren’t Leksel’s calculations confirmed? French mathematician Pierre Simon Laplace came to the conclusion that Jupiter prevented the next meeting of the comet with the Earth. First, he changed its orbit, directing it towards Earth, and then literally threw it out of the solar system.

In 1994, George Wetherill from the Carnegie Institution (USA) carried out a computer simulation, the results of which finally secured Jupiter’s status as the “protector” of the Earth, warding off threats from objects in the Oort cloud.

The Oort cloud is a giant bubble containing billions of large blocks of ice and rock. Scientists believe that these blocks constantly circulate throughout the solar system in the form of comets, which, when falling on planets, leave deep craters. They also fell to Earth. Although the Oort cloud is located at a distance of 50 to 100 thousand astronomical units from the Sun, under the influence of stellar gravity, the planets of the solar system, including our Earth, can be subject to active cometary bombardment.

However, as astronomical observations developed, the main threat to the Earth began to be considered not these objects, but short-period comets and asteroids. In addition, Wetherill's calculations turned out to be too approximate and had a number of errors. A new computer model built by Horner and Jones showed that the smaller the mass of a hypothetical planet orbiting Jupiter, the stronger the so-called secular resonance between Jupiter and the asteroid belt. The largest number of asteroids approaching the Earth appeared in a model where the mass of this planet was one-fifth the mass of Jupiter. Currently, only half of this peak has been reached.

Similar results were obtained when it came to short-period comets. Now, thanks to the gravitational force of Jupiter, comets can approach the Earth at a relatively close distance, but at the same time move away from the solar system, as happened with the aforementioned comet Lexel. But if Jupiter had only a fifth of its actual mass, this balance would be upset, that is, the gas giant could still “send” comets to the Earth, but it would no longer be able to rid us of them...

Meanwhile, Jupiter's gravity only takes long-period comets away from us. And 90 percent of objects crossing the Earth's orbit are asteroids. It’s also fortunate that large meteorites fall to Earth on average once every hundred million years! If this happened more often - say, once every million years, then the biosphere would have no chance to recover, and, most likely, the Earth would turn into a lifeless rocky desert...

How to escape from meteorites, asteroids, comets
and other space debris?

Russians are increasingly interested in the answer to this question. And no wonder. Once every 40-60 years, a large meteorite (or a small asteroid, as you like) falls on the largest country in the world. After which the whole people think that they are completely defenseless against the attack of enemies. And especially from space. Not to mention the fact that all kinds of shit and garbage are constantly falling from the sky onto Russia. And this is not a metaphor! A frozen block from a Boeing shithole pierced the roof of a pigsty and killed the inseminating boar on the spot! And this is just one example!

Now, if some kind of Apofix (sic!) crashed over the Garden Ring, then, presumably, instead of burying money in the ground (bridges across the ocean, stadiums, trampolines, skating rinks and other bobsleigh tracks), the authorities would take up more pressing issues.

The recent fall of an asteroid near Chelyabinsk showed that people have absolutely no idea how to behave during a bombing, artillery shelling, an airplane crash, a nuclear strike, a fire in ammunition depots, an attack by Martians, not to mention the explosion of firecrackers in the toilet. They smelled a roar, a squeal, a howl, a bright light, a stench and rushed to the windows! They ran out half naked into the street! “Fuck! What? Where? Mother-change!” God forbid you miss something. Something similar happened quite recently, in 2004, when the water sharply retreated from the shore. Well, and “Fuck! Mother-change!” We hurried to follow her for a walk, see what was lying there at the bottom and collect free fish. Nobody saw them again.

But cockroaches act completely differently! Long before dangerous bodies enter the atmosphere and before aircraft fly over, they hide in the deepest crevices and do not stick their noses out for at least 5 minutes after the end of the threatening events. True, in this regard it is much easier for them than for people, because they hear infrasounds that travel even in an airless environment! (Although most ignorant physicists deny this)

To escape from a meteorite explosion, you need to know and follow the soldier’s instructions, which were published back in 1950! After all, a fireball flying across the sky can explode at any moment! And if the power of this explosion is comparable to the Tunguska explosion, then the careless observer will then be scraped off with shovels. If they find it.

When an asteroid falls, you must immediately hide in the nearest fold of terrain. Lie face down, cover your head with some object.

Meteorite fall. If there are no ditches, pits, ditch, sewer hatch, etc. nearby, then you need to hide behind the nearest shelter, as shown in the figure.

Meteorite explosion. The fighter must hide in any crevice like a cockroach and wait until the meteorite moves 200 km away.

From now on, the fruitless debate about the “Tunguska phenomenon” can be stopped. Everyone has now witnessed how meteorites explode. In 1908 it was exactly the same, only on a much larger scale. (N. Tesla, aliens, black holes and other plasmoids have absolutely nothing to do with it)

So, until the meteorite crashes, no one will cross themselves. And it’s unlikely that anything will change in this regard: they’ll chat a little about who’s to blame, what to do, where the money went and calm down until next time...
However, the funny thing is that you won’t have to wait long for the next time. It’s not for nothing that Pindos diligently count all the asteroids in space and put their orbits into computers. And soon they will begin to send their astronauts to these celestial bodies. Why do they need these barren blocks? Mining gold and diamonds? And that too, of course. But you just need to slightly adjust the trajectory of some stone, and it will fall directly on those who resist democracy. And no radioactivity! Who will stop them from doing this? Nobody…

The warriors, however, seriously assured the citizens that it is no more difficult to escape from a meteorite than from flatulence. It doesn’t matter that their missiles are completely useless against falling asteroids, but they have something very secret that can even bring down Darth Vader’s own ship!

Special mention should be made of various kinds of oracles, shamans, soothsayers and seers. None of these experts on the future called where they should and warned that it was better for the planes to wait out this matter on the ground. After all, the shock wave could have thrown all the aircraft to the ground or torn them to pieces, like Tuzik’s hot water bottle! With their irresponsibility, these seers endangered the lives of a large number of people! 👿 Such inaction qualifies as “criminal negligence”, for which these charlatans should be held accountable by law.

And what is characteristic is that all these delusional forecasters are not at all embarrassed when they openly make fun of them. On the contrary, they are bending over backwards to cling to events that have already happened. And all kinds of yellow “electronic newspapers” publish all this nonsense in abundance. And it delivers...
See, for example, The meteorite fall was given a mystical explanation. Mystics and theosophists have already polluted everything around us!

As for digging protective holes, there is no rational sense in this. If it flies past, there is no need for shelter. And if he gets in, then the shelter won’t save you. The right hand of God knows no mercy! Amen.

P.S.

The US Congress was so impressed by the described event and afraid for its own skin that, without delay, it called NASA head Charles Bolden on the carpet and specifically heard his report “On NASA’s contribution to the fight against asteroids.” If one like the one in Chelyabinsk (and God forbid, like one over Tungusskaya) crashes over New York or Washington, then trouble will come in America.

Bolden, as an honest man, admitted that he had failed in the assigned area of ​​work and that the United States could not do anything about asteroids measuring 140 meters or less. And he said literally: “In this case, there is only one thing left to do - pray.”

Well, do you understand, reader? You should do the same!

Chelyabinsk residents can live in peace: a meteorite does not fall into the same garden twice.

A note about meteorites.

The Chelyabinsk (Chebarkul) meteorite is a classic rock chondrite. Fell in 2013. The largest after Tunguska. Estimation: diameter ≈ 10-20 meters, weight ≈ 10 thousand tons, first air explosion ≈ 10 kilotons, subsequent two to three dozen air explosions ≈ 1 kiloton each.

The solar system is filled asteroids and comets, remaining after the formation of the planets. And although most of them are quite small and do not exceed grains of sand or a small stone in size, there are also truly dangerous “neighbors” that reach several meters or even kilometers in size.

And, perhaps, in the future there will be a fateful meeting of such space “aliens” with the Earth (as has already happened more than once in history).

Small pieces of spent rockets cross the sky and blaze like meteors before finally burning up in the atmosphere. But large cosmic “guests” can overcome this fiery path and eventually collide with the surface of the Earth, where they will not cause much harm, and will then be picked up by meteorite collectors and various scientists (who greatly value such gifts from heaven).

Meanwhile, researchers (and ordinary people) have long been worried that potentially dangerous huge asteroids could visit the Earth. Moving at speeds of tens of kilometers per second, they can cause incredible harm to our planet and provoke new mass extinctions.

Today, the scientific world is well aware of how destructive the fall of a huge meteorite to Earth can be (and the Chelyabinsk meteorite reminded all other inhabitants of the Earth). According to one version, dinosaurs began to die out when an asteroid measuring about ten kilometers crashed into the Yucatan Peninsula about 65 million years ago.

In this regard, one of the topics of a recent meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) was devoted to preparing to protect the planet from such a scenario. The plan includes measures to create a so-called “observation post” and an interceptor vehicle.

But researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center are concerned about the time it will take to build a reliable rocket, from design to launch. This takes about five years.

Humans are the first creatures who managed to establish a daily study of near space and estimate (at least approximately) how many objects dangerous to us are hiding in the dark.

Large objects are easier to detect today, and therefore have time to take at least some measures (evacuate residents of areas exposed to space hazards). In addition, researchers believe that they have already found most of the dangerous bulky space objects that pose a threat to the Earth (there are more than 15 thousand of them).

Smaller “aliens” are, naturally, more difficult to detect, so they often strike the planet unexpectedly for us.

The question arises: a person can detect a threat, but can he really resist it today? If among our readers there are fans of science fiction films, then they will probably immediately imagine a team of drillers led by a hero (similar, of course, to Bruce Willis), who set off to blow up an ill-fated asteroid to the songs of Aerosmith. But, as always, real science is always a little more complicated than the plots of Hollywood films.

Experts say blowing up a comet or asteroid (as was done in the movie "Armageddon") is not a good idea, since the resulting smaller fragments will still threaten the Earth. In this case, the end of all life on the planet (no matter how frightening it may sound) would come not due to one big explosion, but due to a whole “rain of fire.”

NASA specialists abandoned such an idea, carefully justifying everything in a 2007 report ( PDF format).

The real weapon that will help humanity prevent such an end of the world is time. For example, a recent proposal by scientists - to create a sentinel spaceship that will strive to warn of a threat as early as possible, and an interceptor missile ready to fly - looks much more realistic and effective. However, it will be several years before they are developed and put into operation. What if we don't have this time?

The researchers say people could also try to slightly push the asteroid off its intended course so that it passes Earth. For this purpose, it is proposed to use small rocket boosters that could be delivered to the surface of an asteroid. In addition, there is an idea to use powerful laser beams for the same purpose.

If there is very little time, experts argue, it will be possible to use “kinetic weapons,” which will essentially give the asteroid a significant “kick” using a high-speed rocket—a “cannonball.” She will be able to lead an unexpected guest astray.

So far, all the ideas voiced are just assumptions about how to act in this situation. And today humanity does not have any technologies to implement such scenarios. There are no missiles that will be ready to launch at any moment to respond to a threat, nor other similar devices. Not even a driller who looks like Bruce Willis, experts joke.

For now, only telescopes allow scientists to peer into the darkness and detect potential cosmic threats to our existence. So, according to experts, humanity must begin to create tools that can be resorted to in the event of a real threat.

meteorite comet cosmogenic disaster

Researchers studying problems related to protecting the Earth from cosmogenic disasters are faced with two fundamental problems, without solving which the development of active countermeasures is impossible in principle. The first problem is related to the lack of solid data on the physicochemical and mechanical properties of near-Earth objects (NEOs), which pose a potential threat to the Earth. In turn, solving the first problem is impossible without solving an even more fundamental problem - the origin of small bodies in the Solar System. It is currently unknown whether the NEO is a pile of rubble or loosely bound debris, whether it is composed of hard rock, sediment or porous rocks, whether the NEO is contaminated with ice or a frozen lump of mud, etc. The situation is even worse if we take into account that some of the NEOs, perhaps if not all, are not asteroids, but are “sleeping” or “burnt-out cometary nuclei,” i.e. have lost volatile components (ice, frozen gases), “masquerading” in appearance as asteroids. In short, there is complete uncertainty about the consequences of using active countermeasures on such bodies.

The reason for this situation lies in the underestimation by science of the importance of conducting space research of small bodies of the Solar System. All efforts of astronautics since its birth have been aimed at studying the near-Earth space, the Moon, planets and their satellites, the interplanetary medium, the Sun, stars and galaxies. And as a result of such a scientific policy, we today find ourselves completely defenseless in the face of the formidable danger emanating from Space, despite the impressive achievements of astronautics and the presence of a whole Mont Blanc of nuclear missile weapons.

However, scientists have recently apparently seen the light. If we analyze NASA and ESA programs for exploring the Solar System, there is clearly a tendency to increase the pace of studying small bodies.

The uncertainty about the nature of comets, which led to the complete paralysis of the development of means of actively influencing dangerous comets, even earlier gave rise to a number of problems over which scientists have been racking their brains for a long time and so far unsuccessfully. A similar situation with the Tunguska meteorite. Soon he will be 100 years old, but what fell remains a complete mystery. And this, despite the monstrous amount of research conducted, which, by the way, gave rise to about a hundred hypotheses... So what does all this research have to do with protecting the Earth from cosmogenic disasters? The most immediate and one might even say decisive thing. The results of the study of cometary matter make it possible to consider from a completely different perspective some events in the history of the Earth and the problem of protecting the Earth from cosmogenic disasters.

3. Methods of protection against meteorites and comets

Researchers studying problems related to protecting the Earth from cosmogenic disasters are faced with two fundamental problems, without solving which the development of active countermeasures is impossible in principle. The first problem is related to the lack of solid data on the physicochemical and mechanical properties of near-Earth objects (NEOs), which pose a potential threat to the Earth. In turn, solving the first problem is impossible without solving an even more fundamental problem - the origin of small bodies in the Solar System. It is currently unknown whether the NEO is a pile of rubble or loosely bound debris, whether it is composed of hard rock, sediment or porous rocks, whether the NEO is contaminated with ice or a frozen lump of mud, etc. The situation is even worse if we take into account that some of the NEOs, perhaps if not all, are not asteroids, but are “sleeping” or “burnt-out cometary nuclei,” i.e. have lost volatile components (ice, frozen gases), “masquerading” in appearance as asteroids. In short, there is complete uncertainty about the consequences of using active countermeasures on such bodies.

The reason for this situation lies in the underestimation by science of the importance of conducting space research of small bodies of the Solar System. All efforts of astronautics since its birth have been aimed at studying the near-Earth space, the Moon, planets and their satellites, the interplanetary medium, the Sun, stars and galaxies. And as a result of such a scientific policy, we today find ourselves completely defenseless in the face of the formidable danger emanating from Space, despite the impressive achievements of astronautics and the presence of a whole Mont Blanc of nuclear missile weapons.

However, scientists have recently apparently seen the light. If we analyze NASA and ESA programs for exploring the Solar System, there is clearly a tendency to increase the pace of studying small bodies.

The uncertainty about the nature of comets, which led to a complete paralysis of the development of means of actively influencing dangerous comets, even earlier gave rise to a number of problems over which scientists have been racking their brains for a long time and so far unsuccessfully. A similar situation with the Tunguska meteorite. Soon he will be 100 years old, but what fell remains a complete mystery. And this, despite the monstrous volume of research conducted, which, by the way, gave rise to about a hundred hypotheses. . So what does all this research have to do with protecting the Earth from cosmogenic disasters? The most immediate and one might even say decisive thing. The results of the study of cometary matter make it possible to consider from a completely different perspective some events in the history of the Earth and the problem of protecting the Earth from cosmogenic disasters.

The last global cosmogenic catastrophe in the history of the Earth.

Now, based on the concept being developed, the results of studies of the consequences of the fall of cosmic bodies to Earth conducted by the Computing Center (CC) of the Russian Academy of Sciences and some data on the Tunguska disaster, the most likely scenario of a medium-scale cosmogenic catastrophe is emerging, which civilization will inevitably face sooner or later.

The first three nights after the fall of the Tunguska meteorite in Europe and western Asia were unusually light, you could even read the newspaper. The proposed hypotheses explaining this phenomenon, one way or another, see the root cause in cometary dust that fell on the atmosphere. Dust particles became centers of vapor condensation in the high-altitude layers of the atmosphere, and the resulting drops reflected the rays of the Sun, which was located shallowly below the horizon these days. It was also recorded that in the following months the weather in Europe was rainy and the average temperature dropped by 0.3 degrees.

The results of calculations carried out at the Computing Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences show that the fall of even small bodies, from 200 m in diameter (the diameter of the Tunguska meteorite is estimated at ~50 m) leads to serious dustiness of the atmosphere, after which within a few days there is a sharp drop in air temperature to sub-zero values , even in the summer. In addition, the amount of precipitation increases sharply. Washing out dust from the atmosphere lasts ~1 month. With increasing size of falling bodies, these atmospheric disturbances will increase proportionally. The situation may worsen further due to additional dustiness in the high-altitude layers of the atmosphere as a result of the release of the dust shell of the comet's nucleus there.

Thus, it can be stated that the fall of cosmic bodies to Earth triggers a mechanism that, in terms of the total energy impact on the atmosphere and hydrosphere, will exceed the kinetic energy of the fallen body by many orders of magnitude. The dust will be carried through the atmosphere by air currents and will screen the flow of solar radiation to the earth's surface. At the same time, it does not prevent infrared radiation from freely escaping into outer space from this surface, which in turn will lead to a cooling of the troposphere. Since the waters of the world's oceans have not yet cooled, the processes of heat and mass transfer between cold land and the still warm ocean are intensifying, which will cause a sharp increase in the amount of precipitation, storms, tornadoes and typhoons.

The above reasoning has a very specific goal - to show that the fall of even small cometary nuclei to any point on the globe, which does not even leave craters on the Earth, leads to sudden, short-term climate change and catastrophic floods in some areas of the globe.

At the same time, most estimates of damage from collisions take into account the damage caused only directly at the crash site of the cosmic body, and this takes us away from reality. This assessment has a calming effect, since areas with high population densities make up a small part of the earth's surface.

How to protect yourself from these very real misfortunes. To begin with, we need to at least know what bodies threaten us, what properties they have, and where the threat comes from. The proposed concept allows us to give scientifically based answers to these questions. And although it, developed, by the way, on the basis of the classical theory of comet eruptions, goes against generally accepted views on these problems, since these problems have not yet been solved, the concept has a right to exist.

Dmitriev E.V., now a veteran of the Salyut Design Bureau of the State Research and Production Space Center named after. M.V. Khrunichev, conducts research on key problems of cosmogony. On the issue of protecting the Earth from cosmogenic disasters, he proposed a strategic concept for protecting the Earth from dangerous eruptive comets and considers them to be the main culprits of space disasters on the Earth. As a co-author, he conducted research on the key problems of protecting the Earth from dangerous space objects (DSO), developed tactics for short-range interception of DSO, proposed a sublimation method for removing dangerous comets, proposed a procedure for civil protection in the event of an impending space danger, etc.

There is every reason to try options for solving these problems, guided by the following provisions.

1) The main culprits of cosmogenic catastrophes on Earth are exclusively comets. Asteroids crossing the Earth's orbit are nothing more than “extinguished” or “burnt-out” cometary nuclei masquerading as asteroids. Main Belt asteroids have very stable orbits, as evidenced by the ancient age of meteorites, ~4.5 billion years, and meteorites falling to Earth have long been proven to be asteroid fragments.

2) Comets are formed inside the Solar system, through the eruption (ejection) of matter from the systems of giant planets; they have a short lifespan and small age. The questions of which specific celestial bodies comets are ejected from, and what the ejection mechanism is, remain open.

3) Comets consist of parent rocks of tektites and subtektites and are a conglomerate of sedimentary and igneous rocks cemented by frozen gases and water ice with inclusions of nickel iron. They have high porosity and low strength.

The strategy for protecting the Earth from such comets is as follows: as a first priority, it is necessary to install sentinel probes in the systems of the giant planets that can detect the beginning of the emission of cometary nuclei, which will make it possible to know the minimum available time to repel dangerous comets. We need to start with the Jupiter system, which, judging by its impressive family of short-period comets, has the greatest eruptive activity. The simplest thing that can be proposed at the first stage of creating a system for protecting the Earth is to retrofit existing launch complexes from which interplanetary spacecraft are launched. Due to the absence of a strict limitation on the time required to prepare for the launch of a launch vehicle with a comet interceptor, even in the event of the first approach of a newly born comet to the Earth, it will be enough to have several sets of interceptors and periodically updated launch vehicles as part of these launch complexes. The number of kits is specified during the project development process. In the future, it is necessary to create a specialized anti-comet rocket and space complex (PC RSC) Alimov R., Dmitriev E., Yakovlev V. Space disasters; hope for the best, prepare for the worst // Civil Defense. 1996. No. 1. P. 90 - 92. .

How can a discovered dangerous comet be forced to deviate from its fatal path? For this case, there is already a method proposed jointly by TsNIIMASH at the international conference on the protection of the Earth, held in Snezhinsk, 1994. According to the laws of celestial mechanics, any impact on the comet must change the parameters of its orbit. The task is to ensure that this impact does not destroy its core and at the same time be sufficient to ensure a guaranteed flight past the Earth. It is most likely that the attack on the comet will have to be carried out in intersecting orbits, at high relative speeds, reaching several tens of km/s. Therefore, the most easily implemented is a surface nuclear explosion. Recommended ammunition power is 10-20 Mt. Unfortunately, no reasonable alternative to a nuclear charge is yet visible. As a result of such an explosion, its crust is removed from the surface of the cometary nucleus and the nucleus receives a small impulse. Further, under the influence of solar radiation, the sublimation reactive effect should sharply intensify, which will create a small but constant thrust and the comet will begin to leave a dangerous orbit.

Of course, such an impact on the comet alone will clearly not be enough. The main task is to prevent the formation of a surface crust that interferes with the sublimation process. Therefore, sequential launches of several interceptors are expected. Depending on the mass of the comet, their number can reach several tens. To increase efficiency, each interceptor acts as a navigator for the one following. This tactic of reflecting comets will ensure consistent soft impacts on the nucleus, periodic exposure of internal rocks, which in turn will allow you to get the maximum benefit from the sublimation reactive effect. The same tactics should be applied to near-Earth objects, which, according to the proposed concept, are nothing more than inactive cometary nuclei, which in their optical characteristics are practically no different from asteroids.

The development of high technology has allowed astronomers to discover half of the most dangerous kilometer-scale cosmic bodies wandering in space. Space technology will allow us to confront not very large objects (about 50 - 500 meters) with the help of nuclear devices. We are not talking about military charges, but about special devices that will allow dangerous meteorites to be broken and scattered into dust. We hope that astronomers will be able to discover larger dangerous bodies in advance, and we will have enough time to study their behavior and try to change the trajectory to divert the catastrophe from the Earth.

According to the concept of the planetary defense system "Citadel". “First of all, a dangerous object must be detected. To do this, it is necessary to organize a unified global system for monitoring outer space and a number of regional centers for intercepting dangerous objects, for example, in Russia and America, in countries with the necessary arsenal of protection. After the discovery of a dangerous body, all surveillance services on Earth will start working, and the information will be processed in a specially created planetary protection center, where scientists will calculate the location of the fall, the amount of preliminary destruction and make recommendations for the government. After this work, spacecraft will take off, first for reconnaissance and determining the parameters of the trajectory, size, shape and other characteristics of the threatening object. Then an interceptor device with a nuclear charge will fly, which will destroy the body or change its trajectory. The creation of an operational interception system will make it possible to detect larger objects in advance and concentrate the efforts of regional services on combating the threat. We can defend ourselves, but our capabilities are not limitless, and, unfortunately, we will not be able to hide from very large objects, even if we collect all the nuclear charges available on the planet. Therefore, the idea of ​​​​creating “Noah’s Ark” on the Moon to save humanity seems not so utopian...” V.A. Simonenko (deputy scientific director of the RFNC-VNIITF named after academician E.I. Zababakhin): “The inevitability of space collisions.” http://www.informnauka.ru/.

The problem of asteroid danger began to be recognized in the 80s. during the discovery of asteroids flying past the Earth and after calculating the consequences of a “nuclear” winter.

The study of the orbits of small bodies in the Solar System (comets and asteroids) and the fall of Comet Shoemaker-Levy on Jupiter in 1994 indicate that the probability of a collision of the Earth with such objects is much higher than previously thought. According to recent estimates, the probability of a collision with a 50-meter object is 1 time per century. A dangerous approach of the Earth to the Tautatis asteroid took place in December 1992, when the asteroid, according to some estimates, entered the sphere of the Earth's gravitational field. A global catastrophe that threatens the death of civilization can only be caused by a cosmogenic catastrophe - a collision with a large asteroid or comet, since there is no energy limitation.