A scientist said that moving to another planet such as mars should be immediately done in order to avoid the cosmic dangers that threaten earth. The scientist warned that threats such as major asteroid collisions could destroy the planet and trigger extinction-level events.
As per NASA, earth gets pelted by over 100 tons of dust and particles from space rocks every day. Each year, at least one asteroid that's as big as a car goes through earth's atmosphere and explode mid-air. As for asteroids that are big enough to cause mass extinctions on earth, NASA noted that these arrive within every few million years.
In order to avoid getting wiped out by asteroids, Dr Weronika Sliwa of the Copernicus Science Center Planetarium in Warsaw, Poland suggested that humans should leave earth and colonize another planet instead.
Silwa also stated that establishing a colony on a different planet such as mars will ensure that humans will not go extinct in case of a catastrophic event.
"It's not good that humans only live on one planet," he said, reported by Express. "There's a saying that you don't put all of your eggs in one basket. Our planet is in danger from various cosmic catastrophes and phenomena that could unexpectedly appear on its surface."
"It would be better if humanity slowly stars to think about settling other bodies in the Solar System and perhaps later – farther," Silwa added.
Currently, the planet that has been selected to host a human colony is the red planet. Right now, NASA is preparing to launch a new spaceflight program geared towards a human expedition on mars. This mission will serve as a jump-off point for a possible human settlement on the red planet.
Aside from NASA, the private company SpaceX is also making its own plans to visit mars. Recently the company unveiled the Starship, which is a fully reusable commercial spacecraft. The company intends to use Starship to provide commercial spaceflights to Mars.
Through the space exploration efforts of space agencies and private firms such as SpaceX, Silwa noted that Earth's technology is now evolving to the point that inter-planetary travel is almost possible.
"It seems at this very moment that the technological capability is here for such a manned journey to Mars to take place," he said.
