Chinese researchers plan to fire more than 20 of the nation s largest rockets into space in hopes to potentially divert doomsday asteroids that could impose massive destruction and end life on Earth.
The 23 Long March 5 rockets that weighs 992 tons (900 metric tons) are expected to deflect the 85.5-million-ton (77.5 million metric ton) asteroid Bennu. The space rock which is the size of the Empire State Building could hit Earth in 1 out of 2,700 chances, but would leave behind a historic catastrophic event.
The asteroid impact - 1,200 megatons of kinetic energy - could hit Earth with an collision that is roughly 80,000 times greater than the energy of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, and as destructive as the 100-million-megaton space rock that wiped out the dinosaurs some 65 million years ago.
(Photo : Photo by Frédéric Soltan/Corbis via Getty Images)
Despite mitigation plans and risk analysis methods developed over the years to prepare and prevent losses from tsunamis, international team of scientists identified large gaps and uncertainties that still exist, hindering success of eliminating consequences that coastal cities and communities suffer from in an event of a tsunami.
While tsunamis can be rare, they certainly impose potentially devastating natural hazards in affected areas, especially in coastal cities with hundreds of residents and infrastructures. The research group identified 47 problems from 20 different countries, one of them being the lack of coordination among said countries in predicting, forecasting, and corresponding to tsunami and its risks.