Concerned about the possibility of an asteroid hitting the Earth, the Beijing Institute of Technology announced a project called China Fuyan, which uses antennas to track asteroids miles away. The Chinese newspaper Science and Technology Daily reported that two antennas have already been built in the south of the Asian country, in Chongqing, and should start operating in September.
Learn more about how the asteroids can collide with Earth.
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Asteroid 2020 PN1
2020 PN1 is a very small asteroid whose orbit crosses that of Earth. Thus, because of its orbit close to that of our planet, NASA's JPL classifies it as a "near-Earth asteroid", but does not consider it potentially dangerous. That's because computer simulations didn't indicate any imminent possibility of a future collision.
China Fuyan Project
The objective of this project is to build an array of more than 20 radar antennas to track space rocks 150 million kilometers from Earth – the same distance from Earth to the Sun. This will be the largest radar system in the world, according to Chinese news sources, with a diameter of between 25 and 30 meters (each antenna).
Long Teng, president of the Beijing Institute of Technology, told the Beijing Global Times news agency that the The project will also study the formation of asteroids, in addition to being able to track satellites and debris in the planet's orbit. Earth.
China wants to destroy asteroids
In April, China announced its plans to develop a system to monitor asteroids that pose a threat to Earth, underscoring the growing ambitions of the country's space program.
Wu Yanhua, deputy head of China's National Space Administration, said in an interview with state television that the country intends to explore ways to destroy the Earth-threatening asteroid.
Furthermore, to test the system, China's space program will send a spacecraft to the asteroid in 2025. or 2026, will study and change its course, added Wu Yanhua, without providing details on how this would work.