Killer asteroid destroys New York in NASA’s planetary simulation exercise

A killer asteroid after ruining the French Riviera in 2013, destroying Dhaka in 2015 and sparing Tokyo in 2017 is headed straight for New York. The asteroid, about 330 to 1,000 feet in diameter, would explode 9.3 miles above Central Park on April 29, 2027, with 1,000 times the energy of the nuclear bomb that decimated Hiroshima, according to news agency AFP. At the 2019 Planetary Defence Conference Experts from the liked of NASA’s Planetary defence Coordination Office, ESA’s Space Situational Awareness group, and the International Asteroid Warning Network huddled up to test humanity's readiness to face the catastrophic threat of a killer asteroid.

The exercise set up by “planetary defence” experts is reportedly to gauge what would happen if authorities were unable to deflect a giant space rock hurtling toward America’s most populous city at 43,000 miles per hour.

“Two months may not be enough time to really evacuate, because you’re evacuating people who are stuck, who have to rebuild their lives where they’re going. You’re going to have fleets of U-hauls,” Brandy Johnson, who plays the role of an “angry citizen” in the exercise, referring to the rental moving trucks, told news agency AFP.

But even eight simulated years of preparation weren't enough for scientists and engineers to deflect the killer asteroid successfully.

"I think the exercise illustrated how time is the most valuable asset when it comes to asteroid hazards," NBC news quoted Richard Binzel, a professor of planetary science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a participant in the simulation as saying. "In reality, having many decades of warning gives us multiple options and multiple tries to prevent catastrophe."