A design of the Long March-5 Y5 rocket from Chinas lunar exploration program Change-5 Mission is shown at an exhibit inside the National Museum in Beijing, China March 3, 2021. REUTERS/Tingshu Wang/File PhotoBEIJING, July 7 (Reuters) – Chinese researchers wish to send out more than 20 of Chinas biggest rockets to practice turning away a large asteroid – a method that may become important if a killer rock is on a clash with Earth.The idea is more than science fiction. At some point between late 2021 to early 2022, the United States will launch a robotic spacecraft to obstruct two asteroids relatively near to Earth.When it arrives a year later, the NASA spacecraft will crash-land on the smaller of the 2 rocky bodies to see just how much the asteroids trajectory changes. It will be humanitys first shot at altering the course of a celestial body.At Chinas National Space Science Center, researchers discovered in simulations that 23 Long March 5 rockets striking all at once might deflect a large asteroid from its initial course by a distance 1.4 times the Earths radius.Their calculations are based on an asteroid called Bennu, orbiting the sun, which is as large as the Empire State Building is tall. It comes from a class of rocks with the possible to cause regional or continental damage. Asteroids covering more than 1 km would have global consequences.The science center pointed out a just recently published study in Icarus, a journal on planetary science.Long March 5 rockets are essential to Chinas near-term area ambitions – from delivering spaceport station modules to introducing probes to the Moon and Mars. China has actually effectively introduced 6 Long March 5 rockets given that 2016, with the last one causing some security concerns as its residues reentered the environment in May. “The proposition of keeping the upper phase of the launch rocket to a directing spacecraft, making one big kinetic impactor to deflect an asteroid, is a rather great principle,” stated Professor Alan Fitzsimmons from the Astrophysics Research Centre at Queens University Belfast.”By increasing the mass hitting the asteroid, basic physics should guarantee a much greater impact,” Fitzsimmons informed Reuters, although, he added, the actual operation of such an objective needs to be studied in higher detail.Current quotes show there is approximately a 1% chance a 100-metre-wide asteroid would strike Earth in the next 100 years, stated Professor Gareth Collins at Imperial College London.”Something the size of Bennu clashing has to do with 10 times less likely,” Collins said.Altering an asteroids course provides a lower risk than blasting the rock with nuclear explosives, which may develop smaller fragments without altering their course, scientists say.Reporting by Ryan Woo; Additional reporting by Liangping Gao. Modifying by Gerry DoyleOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.