Could We Actually Nuke an Asteroid If It Was on its Way to Earth?

Amaze Lab

If an asteroid was headed our way, what would we do? Well, if the movies had it their way we would nuke it. However, experts have long said that at best that would likely only break the asteroid up into many pieces, which would still rain down on us, but now a new study has sought to see if blowing one up near an asteroid might be able to push it off course instead.

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00:00if an asteroid was headed our way what would we do well if the movies had it their way we would

00:08nuke it however experts have long said that at best that would likely only break the asteroid

00:13up into many pieces which would still rain down on us but now a new study has sought to see if

00:18blowing one up near an asteroid might be able to push it off course instead they developed a

00:23computer simulation to test a technique called nuclear ablation or the explosion's radiation

00:27actually vaporizes part of the space rock surface that vapor is then predicted to produce thrust

00:32and push the asteroid away from its current trajectory they say this is an extremely

00:37computationally taxing prediction process as this study is looking to track the very photons

00:42penetrating into the asteroid from the explosion this new hypothetical model follows nasa's

00:46successful double asteroid redirect test or dart mission last year where they slowed the rotation

00:51of the dimorphous asteroid by an astounding 33 minutes simply by crashing a small spacecraft

00:56into it but the researchers who developed this simulation model say that in the event an impact

01:01scenario was discovered we would want every tool available at our disposal and nuclear weapons

01:06have the highest ratio of energy density per unit of mass of any human technology

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