HAARP Pings a Near-Earth Asteroid

Dec. 26, 2022: Researchers from NASA and the University of Alaska are about to perform an unusual radar experiment. They’re going to ping a near-Earth asteroid using shortwave radio. The target is a 500-ft-wide space rock named “2010 XC15.” When it passes by Earth on Tuesday, Dec. 27th, the HAARP array in Alaska will hit it with a pulse of 9.6 MHz radio waves.

Radio astronomers ping asteroids all the time. What’s unusual about this experiment is the frequency: 9.6 MHz is hundreds of times lower than typical S-band and X-band frequencies used by other asteroid radars. The goal is to probe the asteroid’s interior.

Lead investigator Mark Haynes of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) explains: “The low frequencies we are using can penetrate the asteroid, unlike S-band or X-band frequencies which reflect mostly off of the…