Asteroid Day: Could We Really Defend Earth from an Asteroid?
What would we do if an asteroid were heading towards Earth?
For this special Asteroid Day episode, I was joined by four extraordinary women who look at space, risk and survival from very different angles. It became a conversation about space, and also, unexpectedly, about Earth: how we listen to warnings, where life came from, and why planetary defence depends on global cooperation.
Landing on a rock 100 million kilometres away
Stefania Soldini worked on JAXA's Hayabusa2 mission at asteroid Ryugu. She explained what it actually takes to land a spacecraft there, including a 40-minute communication delay that means every command has to be right the first time.
Nudging an asteroid
Sabina Raducan broke down NASA's DART mission, the world's first asteroid deflection test, and what ESA's Hera mission will reveal when it studies the crater DART left behind. We also talked about the real odds of an impact, why 100-metre asteroids are the ones to watch, and the planned Ramses mission to Apophis ahead of its close approach in 2029.
The deep freezer
Kathrin Altwegg, principal investigator on Rosetta's ROSINA instrument, took us out beyond Pluto into what she calls the deep freezer of the Solar System: pristine cometary ice older than our planet, which may hold clues to the building blocks of life. She described a 40-year mission as something close to an addiction, and I understood exactly why.
Learning to listen
Artist and Royal College of Art lecturer Aura Satz brought an entirely different lens: sirens, emergency listening, and what it means to make science perceivable to the rest of us. A warning is only as good as our ability to hear it, and to act.
Why it matters
Space science can feel remote. But the questions here are profoundly human. How do we prepare for rare but serious risks? Who decides, and how do nations work together when the stakes are planetary?
If you love space, science, comets, women in STEM or simply big conversations about our place in the universe, this one is for you.
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