Chelyabinsk meteor explosion: A decade on, how much are we prepared?

On February 15, 2013, a house-sized asteroid entered the Earth's atmosphere over Russia's Chelyabinsk, injuring over 1,600 people and causing significant damage to buildings and infrastructure.

The meteoroid came from the Sun's direction with no warning. The Chelyabinsk event was a wake-up call for the scientific community, policymakers, and the public regarding the potential risks posed by hazardous near-Earth objects (NEOs) -  asteroids and comets that come within 30 million miles of Earth.

"Asteroids the size of the Chelyabinsk meteor strike Earth roughly every 50-100 years. Injuries caused by airbursts or similar events could be prevented if people are informed of an oncoming impact and its predicted effects. With advance warning, local authorities would be able to advise the public to keep well away from windows and glass," explains Richard Moissl, the European Space Agency's Head of Planetary Defence.

A decade on, how much are we prepared?

Over the years, significant progress has been made in identifying and tracking NEOs and developing mitigation strategies. While there are currently no known asteroids that are predicted to be on a collision course with Earth for the next 100 years, the search for potentially hazardous asteroids continues.

For instance, NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) was humanity's first-ever planetary defence test to nudge an asteroid off a predicted impact course with Earth. In September 2022, DART intentionally collided with its asteroid target - Dimorphos. While the asteroid didn't pose any threat to Earth, the test confirmed that NASA can successfully navigate a spacecraft to intentionally collide with an asteroid to change its course and protect our planet.

ESA's upcoming Hera mission, the first probe to rendezvous with a binary asteroid system, will perform a detailed post-impact survey of the Dimorphos - the orbiting Moonlet in a binary asteroid system known as Didymos. Scheduled to launch no earlier than October 2024, Hera will particularly focus on the crater left by DART's collision and precise measurement of Dimorphos’ mass.

NASA is also developing the NEO Surveyor mission that aims to finish the discovery of 90 percent of asteroids that could pose a hazard to Earth within a decade of being launched.

"A collision of a NEO with Earth is the only natural disaster we now know how humanity could completely prevent," says NASA Planetary Defense Officer Lindley Johnson.

The #Chelyabinsk meteor struck Earth without warning 10 years ago today. We couldn't see it coming, as it came from the direction of the Sun.What next for the Sun's hidden #asteroids?👉🪨https://t.co/3E9XfB976W#SpaceSafety☄️#WhenTheAtmosphereIsntEnough🌍©️@SandiaLabs pic.twitter.com/JzHDkOZR1c

— ESA Operations (@esaoperations) February 15, 2023