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There is a vast space between the orbits of the fourth planet, Mars, and the fifth, the gas giant, and largest in our solar system, Jupiter. Some believe this area once held a planet that broke apart due to the massive gravitational pull of Jupiter. This area is filled with rocks called asteroids; the area is referred to as the asteroid belt. Asteroid means minor planets. Of the hundreds of thousands of asteroids, four huge ones stand out. These are called: Ceres, Vesta, Pallas, and Hygiea.
Contrary to popular belief, the asteroid belt is mostly empty. The asteroids are spread over such a large area that it would be almost impossible to hit one without very carefully aiming at one. Nonetheless, there are between 700,000 and 1.7 million asteroids with a diameter of .62 miles (1 km) in the belt. The total number of asteroids is thought to be in the millions. There are at least 200 asteroids known to be larger than 62 miles (100 km) If one of these ever struck the Earth it would be a city killer. It might even be an end-times situation.
While the asteroids are spread out, sometimes one does strike another, and like the cue ball in pool, the reaction (every action has an opposite and equal reaction) of being hit sends one or both on a new course, sometimes out of the belt itself.
Many years ago, a small comet entered the belt 300 million miles from Earth and collided with an asteroid of 1.5 km in length. It struck another, which hit a third, fourth and fifth. The Sixth was a monster of 2 miles long (3.2 km), pot marked dark gray, almost invisible dense rock whose orbit was changed when it got hit. It was knocked towards the Earth. Had anyone in NASA or any other organization spotted it and plotted its course, they would have turned white and panicked. The two orbits were going to intersect with each other, and the result wasn’t going to be good for either.
66-million years ago, an asteroid between six and nine miles in diameter hit the Gulf of Mexico just off the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. The resulting explosion threw so much material into the atmosphere that plants died and the change to the environment led to the death of the dinosaurs. In 1908, a much smaller asteroid exploded over Tunguska, Russia. That explosion occurred 3 to 5 miles (5 to 10 km) above the ground. It was equivalent to about 1,000 Hiroshima bombs exploding at the same time. Scientists estimate the asteroid had been about 200 feet (60 m) in diameter. Had the asteroid exploded over a major city, it would have destroyed the city and killed thousands of people.
NASA projected there was only a one in 10,000 chance of a giant asteroid of around 1.25 miles (2 km) hitting the Earth during the next century. Such a strike could cause a large enough firestorm to cause significant damage to the environment for many years. The rock heading towards Earth was larger by three-quarters of a mile than NASA’s worst-case projection. The rock was also speeding through space in excess of 50,000 miles per hour.
When it struck the Earth, 295 days after being shot out of its orbit, it was going to cause massive damage. Many scientists referred to an asteroid of this size striking the Earth as an extinction-level event, one that could end all life on the blue planet called Earth. One of Earth’s problems was this rock wasn’t on NASA’s watch list and hence was flying towards Earth without tipping NASA’s alarms.
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Nine months earlier.
Robert Imus, a California Institute of Technology, Caltech, graduate student, was working on his Ph.D. paper. He was spending another long cold night at the Lick Observatory situated on the summit of Mount Hamilton in the Diablo Range just east of San Jose, California. He’d gotten permission to use the Lick’s largest telescope, the C. Donald Shane telescope 120-inch reflector, which took months to book.
His paper was on asteroid mining. He wrote that the future of Earth’s mining was in space, where all of the minerals the people of Earth would ever need could be located, only 300 million miles away, a distance that sounded like it was impossible. However, Imus had discussed his ideas of a designed robotic mining craft with both JPL and NASA. He wrote such a craft could be cheaply sent into the asteroid belt to mine and return valuable minerals to Earth. Without any humans on board, there wouldn’t be any life support or environment, so the mining craft could be smaller and lighter. He suggested that since computers and AI could pilot drones, they should be able to pilot the mining craft.
Imus was studying his night's images when something caught his eye. That’s funny. Something is covering up a star in this image. I think that means something is out there blocking the light. What could it be? I need some more images to be sure. Did I just discover a new object? I wonder how I can steal another hour of time. Shit, I’ll be late for my class if I stay, yet I want to see what’s covering up the star. Whatever that is, I could name it, and it could carry my name. I’d be famous. It will help me in my Ph.D. when the review panel takes note that I discovered a new body in the solar system. I’ll start recording, and when the next team arrives, I’ll tell them my iWatch battery died; everyone knows that if not charged every day, they die. How angry can they get over a few minutes here and there?
