Scottish scientists have invented a radical way of protection from threatening the planet from global warming. The idea is to cover the Earth from the scorching rays of the Sun with a dust cloud. But it is, of course, is not an ordinary dust, and about the space. Its source can be, for example, an asteroid the size above average, experts say.

This is not the first space "plan of salvation" Land. Earlier to prevent the effects of global warming, a number of specialists offered to withdraw on earth orbit giant mirror. However, the project was considered to be too expensive, besides, technology of today is not yet allow him to perform.

According to the scheme proposed by the Scots, adjust the position of the asteroid on Earth and the Sun should spacecraft. First, it "will put" an asteroid, then hotboxing in the Lagrangian point L1, where the gravitational forces of our planet and the Sun is balanced with each other. After this, the machine will produce a series of explosions in which result there is a cloud of cosmic dust with a diameter of more than 2.5 thousand kilometers long and weighing about 5 quadrillion kilograms.

By the gravitational pull of the asteroid cloud for quite a long time will be held around him, that will allow to reduce the number that falls on the Earth of solar radiation by about seven percent. As a suitable candidate for the source of the protective dust researchers consider Ganymede is the largest near-earth asteroid, outdoor 23 October 1924 Walter the areas of Responsibility and named in honor of the character of ancient Greek mythology - the young men abducted by Zeus.

More than 98 percent of all the asteroids in the Solar system are concentrated in the main asteroid belt located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, as well as the Kuiper belt and theoretically existing Oort cloud. Occasionally some of them in the clashes with neighbors or under the influence of gravity on the part of larger objects descend from their orbits and sometimes go to the Land. But more often researchers see the asteroids potential threat, which is good for our planet.

So, the collision of the Earth with asteroids or other large cosmic bodies have repeatedly been the cause of global cataclysms, scientists say. For example, 65 million years ago in the Earth allegedly crashed a giant meteorite with a diameter of about 10 kilometers, which led to the formation of the Chicxulub crater in the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. It is possible that this disaster has caused the extinction of dinosaurs at the border of the Mesozoic and the Cenozoic, and active volcanic activity on the Indian subcontinent. Another global catastrophe, bearing cosmogenic nature, could occur approximately 12 900 years ago, at the end of the Holocene. Then the period of warming that began with the end of the last ice age, was suddenly broken by a sharp temperature drop, which lasted almost 1100 years, leading to mass extinction of fauna on the territory of North America.

Asteroid danger most often calculated according to the so-called the Torino scale, which is potentially dangerous objects depending on their orbit, mass and speed is assigned a score from 0 to 10. This body, which in Torino scale is assigned a score of 0 points, have no chance to come into contact with the Ground, and have a rating of 10 points should call planetary catastrophe.

Recently engineers from the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow has developed a plan to save planet earth from asteroids, based on innovative laser technology. For this purpose it is offered to use group of small satellites equipped with high-energy lasers and solar-powered, who, flying in an orbit around the asteroid, would be to fire at their laser pulses with small distances. It is assumed that the laser beam will change the albedo (reflectivity) of the asteroid, the surface layer of the object will evaporate, and this process will create a momentum that will lead to the rejection of the body from the original trajectory.

However, the rumors about the impending collision of the Earth with asteroids and ensuing apocalyptic events still greatly exaggerated. The matter is that according to statistics collision with a massive cosmic bodies occur once in a hundred thousand years.