China also decides to mess with near Earth asteroid Aphophis.

As covered here last month, the European Space Agency is planning to try and move 99942 Aphophis; a near Earth asteroid which has a 1 in 250,000 chance of hitting Earth in 2036.

Now China has announced it also plans to have a go, with a plan to send a roughly 20 pound spacecraft crashing into the same asteroid to study the effects. While the Chinese craft is significantly smaller than the 1,100 pound craft the ESA is planning to use, it’s speed will be much faster at impact - around 200,000 miler per hour.

It’s worth noting that neither mission is actively trying to stop the asteroid hitting Earth, but the size of the asteroid and the relatively close pass it will be making to Earth have made it an easy target for research. Both groups are aiming to put together useable reaction plans should an asteroid be discovered on a path to hit Earth in the future.