[Music]
good morning and thanks for inviting me
I real excited to be here today I want
to take you to a journey to space and
what I brought with me is not the result
of some science scientific experiment is
not a strange potato this is actually a
scale model of asteroid Itokawa etekaaf
was visited 12 years ago by a Japanese
spacecraft and the real size of this
asteroid in this direction is actually
twice the size of the toy fell or the
hyford power like this there are
millions of asteroids orbiting the Sun
every day and these asteroids are the
leftovers of the formation of the solar
system what actually didn’t make it into
a planet in their orbit around the Sun
sometimes they collide and sometimes
they cross the orbit of the earth and
sometimes they do impact our planet
small asteroids enter into the
atmosphere and they burn we see them in
the night when we see a shooting star we
close our eyes and we make a wish
but four years ago an asteroid entered
over the sky of Chelyabinsk
a remote city in Siberia and it exploded
it exploded in the atmosphere the
shockwave injured 1,500 people not
because he hit them but because he broke
the glasses that were looking out of the
window what was going on larger
asteroids don’t burn in the atmosphere
and they reach the ground and they make
a big crater this map shows all of the
asteroid impact craters that are still
visible today on our planet kind
reminders right probably the most famous
one is that white dot you see in the
Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico that’s at
100 kilometers wide asked asteroid
impact crater which is associated with
the extinction of the dinosaurs
but I’m not here to talk about asteroid
impacts and I’m not here to scare you
did I scare you
I’m actually here to talk about
different type of impact an impact that
I find much more interesting and I’ve
been working on for the last ten years
and this is about going into space with
a spacecraft and actually hit an
asteroid and why would do it we hit it
really hard
asteroid impacts is the only natural
hazard but not only we can predict but
the good news is that we can also do
something about it and there’s a big
difference between us and the dinosaurs
as a species about 50 years ago we made
a very wise decision which was to
establish space programs and within the
space programs we spent the last 10
years working out a solution and the
good news is not only we have a solution
but we actually found three solutions so
sales
now unfortunately Bruce Willis if you’ve
seen the movie he dies in the end so we
could not recruit him and ben affleck he
was not a good driller so i’m not a sexy
as them but we could hire the best
engineers and the best scientists in
europe to work on what i consider to be
the most amazing project and i’ve been
partying and i’m part of this team i
have the privilege of working with these
people so what are these three
techniques in red you see the first one
is the nuclear deflection the second
technique is called kinetic impactor in
orange and the third technique is called
gravity tractor if you look at this plot
what you see is that the three solutions
of the three techniques are
complementary to one another depending
on two factors the size of the asteroid
and the warning time how much time
before the impact do you know that this
asteroid is coming
now depending on these two factors you
can you can pick one of these other
tools there’s a little thing blue area
on the bottom and this is for very small
asteroids and for very small asteroids
independently of the warning time
there’s only one thing you can do is to
evacuate now let’s have a look so the
nuclear deflection is about bringing a
nuclear device near the surface of the
asteroid let it explode and so that the
energy deposits on the surface of the
asteroid then pushes it pushes it away
now this technique works for very large
asteroids and asteroids with a warning
time that is very short so in other
words this is our last resort the good
news is that we know most of the largest
asteroids this is what the international
community is looking has been looking
for in the last 20 years with the
telescope’s and now we’ve mapped over
90% of them and we know these are not
going to hit problem is with the smaller
asteroids for small asteroids we have
another solution which is a taking a
very massive spacecraft nearby the
asteroid and literally use its own
gravity to pull the asteroid away from
its trajectory now this technique of
course works for small asteroids and the
force which is the same that you know
the earth exerts on us and keeps us our
feet on the ground so the gravity of the
other spacecraft is so small that it
only works if you let it run for many
many years so it’s bastards that need a
very long warning time the third
solution is the kinetic impactor kinetic
impactor is very simple it’s like the
billiard game you send a spacecraft as
fast as you can and you hit the asteroid
now the velocity U will change the
asteroid is small is millimeter per
second but if you have a few years
before the impact this is enough to
nudge it off the course after all
in–’cause
next space earth is a very very small
dot the other thing is that this
technique works for a wide range of
asteroid sizes between a few hundred
meters in a kilometer which is where the
international community is putting its
currently its best efforts to find them
there are millions of them so this is
actually the technique that we’ve been
working on in the last ten years what
this tremont simulation shows you is a
kinetic impactor of an asteroid we do
the this is the highest fidelity
simulation we can do today
supercomputers not in China but in
Europe every single dot you see in this
simulation is numerically computed the
trajectory you see in blue is the result
of many many many hours of computing
time and but the question is is this
correct how do we know whether we got
the right how do we know whether it
works of course we do experiments we
take we cannot take a 300 meter rock we
take a small rock we put it in a lab and
we shoot at it at hypervelocity
kilometer per second and then we
extrapolate but in this extrapolation of
the results how do we know if we get it
right well the only way to know is
actually go out there in outer space
with a spacecraft and heart and hit an
asteroid as hard as you can so this is
the best experiment we have conceived to
test the kinetic impactor and it’s
called Ida
it’s an international collaboration
between the European Space Agency and
NASA and the experiment is very simple
we hit a small moon of an asteroid
orbiting around a larger aster like the
earth and the moon and the ultimate
objective is to change the orbital
motion of the moon like in a deflection
and to change into measure this
to do that we go first with a European
spacecraft called aim and we measure all
the characteristics of the small moon we
want to know like in a lab all of the
conditions so that after the experiment
we can rebuild it in our in our
computers and validate our models once
we know everything about this moon we
send an American space vehicle dart to
impact the moon at 6 kilometer per
second and the velocity change is half a
millimeter per second this is for small
but if you let it build up over time you
will find out that two weeks after the
impact the asteroid will actually be on
the opposite side as you would have been
before the impact now what if I were to
tell you that this mission from launch
to the end of the experiment takes only
two years and what if I were to tell you
that you could actually see the impact
with your own eyes if you were to go to
a telescope that night isn’t it the
coolest mission ever well if you’re not
convinced this is what you it would look
like if you were sitting in space this
is the aim spacecraft arriving at the
asteroid and using all of these
instruments to characterize the moon
most important is the surface properties
the shape and the interior structure and
then from a safe distance watch the
earth the asteroid impact from dart and
after the impact characterize the crater
the shape gives a lot of information and
measure this deflection
kula so since it’s the coolest mission
and it’s important for humanity of
course must be extremely expensive
otherwise we would have done it so let’s
have a look the cost of the spacecraft
the cost of the rocket putting the
spacecraft on the rocket and all of the
team the management for the a mission
cost 250 million euros it’s a lot of
money but he
if only French citizens were to pay for
this mission it would cost three years
85 cents now if you go to Paris and you
can find a nice bar and you sit at a
table this is the average cost of a
coffee so think about it next time you
go to Paris
but as I’m a European and I believe this
project has all the ingredients and
should be dealt with at European level
this is what it would cause each
European citizen 34 cents another way to
look at it is imagine we would be the
new Formula one track the cost of being
a new track is 248 million euros
comparable we like sports another way is
the Summer Olympics the cheapest ever
Summer Olympic was in 64 in Tokyo and
the cost was 282 million the most
expensive one was 60 times the cost of
the emission 15 billion euros now I want
to conclude with three questions and
don’t worry I’m gonna answer the
questions which were the same question
that the UK astronomer were y’all sir
bondi replied to the Queen when in the
1950s when he was asked to assess
whether the project to build barriers
over the River Thames in London to avoid
future floods was to be built it was a
very expensive project and the question
was should we do it I were either going
to be other flooding is it worth
investing all of this money he answered
with three questions the first question
is is this going to happen again it’s
this natural event going to happen and
my answer is yes independently of what
kind of Statistics you look at it this
is going to happen again one day the
second question is do we have the
technical capability
to prevent it and if we do implementing
those means is it going to disrupt our
economy now the answer is we have the
technical capabilities and if we do
implement them it’s not going to change
our economy it doesn’t is not going to
affect our economy and the third
question is as a civilized society that
has the means and the capabilities is it
conceivable that we don’t do anything to
prevent it he didn’t answer that
question and I want to answer it today
and my answer is yes we need to go out
there now that we have the time and
impact and a stir it really hard thank
you
[Applause]
good morning and thanks for inviting me
I real excited to be here today I want
to take you to a journey to space and
what I brought with me is not the result
of some science scientific experiment is
not a strange potato this is actually a
scale model of asteroid Itokawa etekaaf
was visited 12 years ago by a Japanese
spacecraft and the real size of this
asteroid in this direction is actually
twice the size of the toy fell or the
hyford power like this there are
millions of asteroids orbiting the Sun
every day and these asteroids are the
leftovers of the formation of the solar
system what actually didn’t make it into
a planet in their orbit around the Sun
sometimes they collide and sometimes
they cross the orbit of the earth and
sometimes they do impact our planet
small asteroids enter into the
atmosphere and they burn we see them in
the night when we see a shooting star we
close our eyes and we make a wish
but four years ago an asteroid entered
over the sky of Chelyabinsk
a remote city in Siberia and it exploded
it exploded in the atmosphere the
shockwave injured 1,500 people not
because he hit them but because he broke
the glasses that were looking out of the
window what was going on larger
asteroids don’t burn in the atmosphere
and they reach the ground and they make
a big crater this map shows all of the
asteroid impact craters that are still
visible today on our planet kind
reminders right probably the most famous
one is that white dot you see in the
Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico that’s at
100 kilometers wide asked asteroid
impact crater which is associated with
the extinction of the dinosaurs
but I’m not here to talk about asteroid
impacts and I’m not here to scare you
did I scare you
I’m actually here to talk about
different type of impact an impact that
I find much more interesting and I’ve
been working on for the last ten years
and this is about going into space with
a spacecraft and actually hit an
asteroid and why would do it we hit it
really hard
asteroid impacts is the only natural
hazard but not only we can predict but
the good news is that we can also do
something about it and there’s a big
difference between us and the dinosaurs
as a species about 50 years ago we made
a very wise decision which was to
establish space programs and within the
space programs we spent the last 10
years working out a solution and the
good news is not only we have a solution
but we actually found three solutions so
sales
now unfortunately Bruce Willis if you’ve
seen the movie he dies in the end so we
could not recruit him and ben affleck he
was not a good driller so i’m not a sexy
as them but we could hire the best
engineers and the best scientists in
europe to work on what i consider to be
the most amazing project and i’ve been
partying and i’m part of this team i
have the privilege of working with these
people so what are these three
techniques in red you see the first one
is the nuclear deflection the second
technique is called kinetic impactor in
orange and the third technique is called
gravity tractor if you look at this plot
what you see is that the three solutions
of the three techniques are
complementary to one another depending
on two factors the size of the asteroid
and the warning time how much time
before the impact do you know that this
asteroid is coming
now depending on these two factors you
can you can pick one of these other
tools there’s a little thing blue area
on the bottom and this is for very small
asteroids and for very small asteroids
independently of the warning time
there’s only one thing you can do is to
evacuate now let’s have a look so the
nuclear deflection is about bringing a
nuclear device near the surface of the
asteroid let it explode and so that the
energy deposits on the surface of the
asteroid then pushes it pushes it away
now this technique works for very large
asteroids and asteroids with a warning
time that is very short so in other
words this is our last resort the good
news is that we know most of the largest
asteroids this is what the international
community is looking has been looking
for in the last 20 years with the
telescope’s and now we’ve mapped over
90% of them and we know these are not
going to hit problem is with the smaller
asteroids for small asteroids we have
another solution which is a taking a
very massive spacecraft nearby the
asteroid and literally use its own
gravity to pull the asteroid away from
its trajectory now this technique of
course works for small asteroids and the
force which is the same that you know
the earth exerts on us and keeps us our
feet on the ground so the gravity of the
other spacecraft is so small that it
only works if you let it run for many
many years so it’s bastards that need a
very long warning time the third
solution is the kinetic impactor kinetic
impactor is very simple it’s like the
billiard game you send a spacecraft as
fast as you can and you hit the asteroid
now the velocity U will change the
asteroid is small is millimeter per
second but if you have a few years
before the impact this is enough to
nudge it off the course after all
in–’cause
next space earth is a very very small
dot the other thing is that this
technique works for a wide range of
asteroid sizes between a few hundred
meters in a kilometer which is where the
international community is putting its
currently its best efforts to find them
there are millions of them so this is
actually the technique that we’ve been
working on in the last ten years what
this tremont simulation shows you is a
kinetic impactor of an asteroid we do
the this is the highest fidelity
simulation we can do today
supercomputers not in China but in
Europe every single dot you see in this
simulation is numerically computed the
trajectory you see in blue is the result
of many many many hours of computing
time and but the question is is this
correct how do we know whether we got
the right how do we know whether it
works of course we do experiments we
take we cannot take a 300 meter rock we
take a small rock we put it in a lab and
we shoot at it at hypervelocity
kilometer per second and then we
extrapolate but in this extrapolation of
the results how do we know if we get it
right well the only way to know is
actually go out there in outer space
with a spacecraft and heart and hit an
asteroid as hard as you can so this is
the best experiment we have conceived to
test the kinetic impactor and it’s
called Ida
it’s an international collaboration
between the European Space Agency and
NASA and the experiment is very simple
we hit a small moon of an asteroid
orbiting around a larger aster like the
earth and the moon and the ultimate
objective is to change the orbital
motion of the moon like in a deflection
and to change into measure this
to do that we go first with a European
spacecraft called aim and we measure all
the characteristics of the small moon we
want to know like in a lab all of the
conditions so that after the experiment
we can rebuild it in our in our
computers and validate our models once
we know everything about this moon we
send an American space vehicle dart to
impact the moon at 6 kilometer per
second and the velocity change is half a
millimeter per second this is for small
but if you let it build up over time you
will find out that two weeks after the
impact the asteroid will actually be on
the opposite side as you would have been
before the impact now what if I were to
tell you that this mission from launch
to the end of the experiment takes only
two years and what if I were to tell you
that you could actually see the impact
with your own eyes if you were to go to
a telescope that night isn’t it the
coolest mission ever well if you’re not
convinced this is what you it would look
like if you were sitting in space this
is the aim spacecraft arriving at the
asteroid and using all of these
instruments to characterize the moon
most important is the surface properties
the shape and the interior structure and
then from a safe distance watch the
earth the asteroid impact from dart and
after the impact characterize the crater
the shape gives a lot of information and
measure this deflection
kula so since it’s the coolest mission
and it’s important for humanity of
course must be extremely expensive
otherwise we would have done it so let’s
have a look the cost of the spacecraft
the cost of the rocket putting the
spacecraft on the rocket and all of the
team the management for the a mission
cost 250 million euros it’s a lot of
money but he
if only French citizens were to pay for
this mission it would cost three years
85 cents now if you go to Paris and you
can find a nice bar and you sit at a
table this is the average cost of a
coffee so think about it next time you
go to Paris
but as I’m a European and I believe this
project has all the ingredients and
should be dealt with at European level
this is what it would cause each
European citizen 34 cents another way to
look at it is imagine we would be the
new Formula one track the cost of being
a new track is 248 million euros
comparable we like sports another way is
the Summer Olympics the cheapest ever
Summer Olympic was in 64 in Tokyo and
the cost was 282 million the most
expensive one was 60 times the cost of
the emission 15 billion euros now I want
to conclude with three questions and
don’t worry I’m gonna answer the
questions which were the same question
that the UK astronomer were y’all sir
bondi replied to the Queen when in the
1950s when he was asked to assess
whether the project to build barriers
over the River Thames in London to avoid
future floods was to be built it was a
very expensive project and the question
was should we do it I were either going
to be other flooding is it worth
investing all of this money he answered
with three questions the first question
is is this going to happen again it’s
this natural event going to happen and
my answer is yes independently of what
kind of Statistics you look at it this
is going to happen again one day the
second question is do we have the
technical capability
to prevent it and if we do implementing
those means is it going to disrupt our
economy now the answer is we have the
technical capabilities and if we do
implement them it’s not going to change
our economy it doesn’t is not going to
affect our economy and the third
question is as a civilized society that
has the means and the capabilities is it
conceivable that we don’t do anything to
prevent it he didn’t answer that
question and I want to answer it today
and my answer is yes we need to go out
there now that we have the time and
impact and a stir it really hard thank
you
[Applause]
Please follow and like us: