To round off Brian’s launch day for new book: “Bennu 3-D: Anatomy of an Asteroid” an interview with Mark Austin of Sky News, along with Professor Dante Lauretta [WITH TRANSCRIPT].
– https://youtu.be/xGJNgh7zFZQ
TRANSCRIPT
E&OE
SKY NEWS:
Joining me now is the astrophysicist rock star and author of “Bennu 3-D, Anatomy of an Asteroid”, Sir Brian May and also Professor Dante Lauretta, who’s leading NASA’s mission to collect material from the surface of the asteroid. Good evening to both, and I’ve been flicking through the evening, in the last few hours, Brian, where to start? I mean, it’s the world’s first complete Atlas of an asteroid. How on earth did you get involved?
BRIAN MAY:
Yeah, this has never been done before. I got involved because I managed to intrigue Dante with my stereoscopic interpretations of the data that he was getting back from his incredible mission. So there’s a billion dollars’ worth of science and we get to play with it. I get to make stereoscopic images with my colleague, Claudia Manzoni and I sent them to Dante, and he said: “This is going to really help us with a mission. Can you do more? Can we ask you for certain coordinates to be depicted in 3-D?” So I got into it, and we worked really hard, became good friends, and eventually wrote the book. Because it had to be done.
SKY NEWS:
Yeah. Well, I mean, Brian, Bennu is, as I was saying, potentially very hazardous asteroid – high probability of impacting the Earth in the late 22nd century. I mean, it all sounds very alarming, Brian. Yeah.
BRIAN:
Yeah, well, it’s not going to affect our generation, of course, but it could affect a couple of generations time. Yes, there is a there is a low possibility of this, this particular asteroid hitting the Earth. And it’s very essential that science is done right now to try and find ways to avoid that happening, if it’s going to happen. It’s going to come between us, between the Earth and the Moon, in only how many years? …
PROFESSOR DANTE: 2135.
BRIAN:….which is not that far away. So that’s that, in itself, is not a hazardous situation,But from then on, it’s unknown because the orbit gets perturbed and we don’t know whether it will come back on a collision course, or a course which misses us.
SKY NEWS:
Right. Professor, the mission is underway with this space vehicle heading back towards Earth, I think I’m right in saying what will that bring back that will help you improve, you know, the knowledge about this thing, snd would it in any way help us trying to avert what is going to happen?
PROFESSOR DANTE:
Yeah, thank you. So OSIRIS REx is a NASA mission to journey out to near Earth asteroid, Bennu, collect a sample and bring it back to the Earth. And we’re interested in Bennu, for a couple of reasons. One is the impact hazard. Amazingly, the interaction between sunlight and the asteroid surface actually changes the future path of this object. It absorbs the sunlight, heats up, because it’s a very dark and black asteroid and re-emits that energy is heat, that actually imparts an acceleration on the object, and if you’re going to be able to predict where it’s going to be in the future, you need to understand those thermal properties. And those are one of the key measurements that we’re going to make when the sample is back on Earth on September 24th of this year.
SKY NEWS:
Yeah. And it’s I mean, it’s difficult, it’s a difficult read in terms of as you know, I am not an astrophysicist. But you go through the book, and the pictures are quite extraordinary. I mean, are we gonna get more pictures coming back from this asteroid?
PROFESSOR DANTE:
No, the OSIRIS REx spacecraft left asteroid Bennu in May of 2021. And it’s been on a path through the solar system that intersects the Earth in September. The only new pictures of Bennu we will get are the bits of it that arrive in our laboratories.
SKY NEWS:
Right. Brian, I just wanted to ask you, I was sort of looking at what you’ve been saying about space travel and I was reading the other day about you saying that humans need to work out how we behave on this planet, before sort of heading off to others. And I wonder whether you, how concerned you are about the all the stuff today about, you know, the world’s hottest month and all this sort of stuff and climate change?
BRIAN:
Well, I think it’s now pretty apparent that we are having an effect on the Earth, which is deleterious, and we need to stop doing what we’re doing. It’s not just about climate change, it’s about the way we’ve polluting the Earth and covering it in concrete and basically, pretty much eliminating here all species except the ones that we think are useful to us. So I think we need a major, major change in philosophy in the way we treat the other creatures with which we share this planet. So I did say this at one of the Starmus Cnventions, and I said it in front of a number of men who had walked upon the Moon, feeling very nervous, but they all came up afterwards and said: “You were right to say that Brian. We have to behave better on our own planet before we go out and putting our imprint on the rest of the Cosmos.”
SKY NEWS:
And Brian, I mean, would you fancy space travel? Do you.. is it something you would like to do?
BRIAN:
I would have liked it. I think I’m a little old, little long in the tooth now. I’m not sure if my body would withstand it. Obviously, I’d love to. I’d love to sit in the International Space Station I think for a little while and just watch the Earth roll around underneath me. I don’t fancy going out and going down quick on Richard Branson’s thing. I’m a person who likes to sit and contemplate. So put me somewhere where I can get outside the Earth and look at it. I think I would love that.
PROFESSOR DANTE:
I think to your point, when people see the Earth against the blackness of space, you really appreciate its beauty and its fragility, and you learn to treat it a little nicer and to treat all the life forms that we share with it a little nicer.
SKY NEWS:
Yeah, and just Professor just to end this story, I mean, going back to my point, can we stop it? Can it be stopped? I mean, there’s all these movies about diverting asteroids and so forth. I mean, I don’t know what’s the, you know, what’s going to happen?
PROFESSOR DANTE:
Well, if Bennu is going to hit the Earth, and that’s a very low probability event, it’ll be in the year 2182. So we have plenty of fair warning. And yes, absolutely, we have the capabilities to prevent that from happening. You only have to change it a little bit if you act well in advance. If you wait until the last minute, then there’s no hope.
SKY NEWS:
Okay. Well, listen, thank you very much. Sorry, Brian. Yeah, go ahead, Brian. Sorry, Brian, go ahead.
BRIAN:
I was just gonna say it’s really important. I just think you’ve got to keep a balance because it could be a destroyer. But of course, you know, it has brought life to this planet. It’s very likely that the asteroids have given us the biosphere which we live in, and maybe the seeds of life itself. So that’s an important issue here, not just the collision aspect. It’s Bennu the destroyer, but it’s also Bennu the life giver.
SKY NEWS:
Absolutely. Brian, thank you very much, indeed for coming on, And Professor. Good luck with the book and thank you both for coming on the programme. Thank you.