The new simulations envisage a nuclear planetary defense against boulders from space
What could be more festive these days than a nuclear explosion that saves countless lives? LLNL scientists have developed a sophisticated new model for simulating the use of a nuclear weapon in planetary defense, deflecting an incoming asteroid and an imminent impact with devastating consequences.
Simulation of the effect of a nuclear explosion on planetary defenses against an asteroid.
In September 2022, NASA famously tested the collision with a cosmic boulder, which occurred as part of the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission. The collision with the Didymoon moon of the planet Didymos was only an exercise, but its results contributed significantly to the development of the planetary defense of the hitherto practically defenseless Earth .
Mary Burkey. Kredit: LLNL.
Kinetic defense is not bad. The DART mission clearly showed that we are able to intervene in this way. But the problem is that we can only get impactors of a limited size into space. In a classic impact, they would only be able to deal with smaller planets. But what if we were threatened by some really big cosmic boulder?
Experts from the US Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) expect that conventional nuclear weapons will be involved in the planetary defense against the catastrophic impacts of asteroids. Many have been toying with this idea for a long time. Mary Burkey and her colleagues are testing how they hold up in thorough simulations.
To do this, they developed a new tool that makes it possible to evaluate the potential use of a nuclear weapon against an incoming asteroid. Such simulations tend to be very complicated and include complex interactions between the radiation and energy of a nuclear explosion – and the surface and interior of a dangerous asteroid. Burkey’s team’s model for such simulations uses insights gained during the aforementioned DART mission.
Logos. Credit: LLNL.
As Burkey says, nuclear weapons contain the most energy per unit mass of any human device. This makes them an interesting tool against asteroids. We have various options for their use in planetary defense. We can try to deviate the asteroid from the collision course so that it remains whole. Or we can shatter it into a cloud of small fragments that will also miss the Earth. But the condition is, as usual with planetary defense, that we detect the threat with enough time to send a spaceship with a nuclear charge.
Sophisticated simulations of this kind require large amounts of data. Burkey’s team included many detailed physical parameters in the new model for the simulations, making them very computationally intensive. As the authors of the study admit, the probability that a larger planet will hit the Earth in our lifetime is not great. However, if this were to happen, the consequences would probably be unfathomable. If such a threat really appeared, people in key positions would need the results of the simulations to make an educated decision about the best course of action. We will certainly not be stupid if we have such simulations ready.
Video: NASA’s DART Mission Tests Earth’s Defenses Against Asteroids | WSJ
Literature
Planetary Science Journal 4: 243.
2023-12-26 18:22:02
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