We Might Be Able to Nuke Asteroids to Save Earth
Nuking a huge asteroid could save Earth, lab experiment suggests
Humanity could use a nuclear bomb to deflect a massive, life-threatening asteroid hurtling towards Earth in the future, according to scientists who tested the theory in the laboratory by blasting X-rays at a marble-sized "mock asteroid".
The old joke about the dinosaurs going extinct because they didn't have a space program may be overselling the need for one.
We might be able to defend Earth from a future asteroid impact using something straight out of a sci-fi movie: a blast of X-rays. This pulse of X-ray radiation, produced by a nuclear explosion ...
Scientists at Sandia National Laboratories have made significant strides in understanding how nuclear explosions could be ...
The experiment recorded in nanosecond detail how a very large pulse of radiation from a nuclear blast could essentially ...
But for some time, scientists have predicted that only a nuclear blast would be sufficient to deflect a kilometer-sized asteroid. Computer simulations agree that it will work. Figuring out how to ...
A laboratory experiment conducted by an international team of researchers has confirmed that the X-rays emitted by a suitably ...
A nuclear explosion could be the key to deflecting an Earth-bound killer asteroid. The physics involved, however, are far more complex than the Bayhem depicted on screen. That’s according to a ...
Now, Moore and his colleagues find that nuclear bombs could prevent devastating cosmic impacts if they explode well above the surface of the asteroid. They suggest the X-ray pulse from the ...
Other diversions range from the forceful, such as hitting an asteroid with a nuclear weapon, to the sublime, such as painting one side of an asteroid black, causing it to absorb more solar ...
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