Russia

Roscosmos to Rename Russia's Asteroid Detection System to 'Milky Way'

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The Russian automated tool of monitoring hazardous situations in near-Earth space will be given a new name of "Milky Way," the first deputy director of Russian space agency Roscosmos, Yury Urlichich, said on Tuesday.
Sputnik
"We have decided to rename the system to 'Milky Way.' As of today, it is called the NES ASPOS [Warning Automated System of Hazardous Situations in near-Earth Space]", Urlichich said during the annual Academic Space Conference, named after Soviet rocket engineer Sergei Korolev.

According to one of the theories, a space object that hit the Earth billions of years ago led to the creation of the moon, while another space body that collided with our planet resulted in the extinction of dinosaurs.

"There is a less than one per cent chance that something can approach the Earth", Urlichich said without specifying any time frame.

NASA revealed this week that the likelihood of a gigantic asteroid 5 to 10 kilometres in diameter hitting the Earth is only 0.000001%.

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