- HAARP targeted asteroid 2010 XC15.
- The experiment could help shield Earth from asteroids.
- Data analysis will take weeks and be published soon.
Scientists bounced radio waves off a 500-foot rock to help Earth. A powerful transmitter in remote Alaska, the High-Frequency Active Auroral Research Programme (HAARP), directed its antennas at asteroid 2010 XC15, a space rock classified as a potentially hazardous near-Earth asteroid, to send long wavelength radio signals.
The experiment’s findings could boost attempts to protect Earth against larger asteroids that could inflict considerable harm.
“We will be analysing the data over the next few weeks and hope to publish the results in the coming months,” says the researcher, said Mark Haynes, the project’s main investigator and a radar systems engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
This was the first time an asteroid observation at such low frequencies was attempted.
“This shows the value of HAARP as a potential future research tool for the study of near-Earth objects,” he continued.
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