But asteroids aren't inherently menacing. They're just ancient objects, formed early in our solar system's history, that ...
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 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 ...
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 ...
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 ...