China is developing an early warning system to spot asteroids that might smash into the Earth, according to the scientist leading the national mission.<\/p>\n
China planned to deploy multiple telescopes on the ground, alongside a constellation of satellites in orbit, state-run Science and Technology Daily quoted Li Mingtao, chief scientist at the asteroid monitoring and early-warning research centre under the China National Space Administration, as saying.<\/p>\n
None of the asteroids that had been discovered so far were thought to be on a clear collision course with Earth, Li said in the report on June 30, which the United Nations designated as International Asteroid Day.<\/p>\n
More than 95 per cent of near-Earth asteroids larger than 1km (0.62 miles) in diameter \u2013 large enough to trigger global catastrophes \u2013 had already been identified, he said.<\/p>\n
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But only about 45 per cent of asteroids measuring around 140 metres (460 feet) across, which could devastate a small country, were believed to have been discovered, he added.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese undiscovered near-Earth asteroids pose the greatest risk. They are numerous, very faint before their approach and may even suddenly approach from the direction of the sun,\u201d Li said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"China is developing an early warning system to spot asteroids that might smash into the Earth, according to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":589982,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[270],"tags":[381,44279,6599,18,19,250158,17,250157,1024,250159,6213,133,166126,451,4913,107],"class_list":["post-589981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-china","tag-china-national-space-administration","tag-earth","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-international-asteroid-day","tag-ireland","tag-li-mingtao","tag-nasa","tag-near-earth-asteroid-early-warning-system","tag-planetary-defence","tag-science","tag-science-and-technology-daily","tag-space","tag-united-nations","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116933996507160605","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=589981"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589981\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/589982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=589981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=589981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=589981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}