Nuclear Bombs Can Save Earth From A Massive Asteroid Strike

Bisnis.com, JAKARTA – Scientists and researchers at US government facilities say that detonating a nuclear bomb could save the world from disasters asteroid a giant

This was revealed in the first comprehensive demonstration of nuclear-assisted planetary defense.

Physicists at Sandia National Laboratories, whose main objective is to ensure the safety and security of the US nuclear arsenal, have documented in nanosecond detail how large waves of radiation released by nuclear explosions moving from nearby asteroids.

The event was so powerful that it heated the surface by tens of thousands of degrees, producing a rapidly expanding ball of gas capable of pushing the asteroid off course. Do the right amounts and the shunt should be enough to delay doomsday.

“The vaporized material is coming out of one side, pushing the asteroid in the other direction. It’s like turning an asteroid into a rocket,” said Dr. Nathan Moore, first author of the study, as reported by the Guardian.

Destructive asteroid impacts are rare in Earth’s history, but humans have learned a lesson 66 million years ago that space rocks can cause catastrophe. The asteroid that ended the age of the dinosaurs was about 6 miles wide, but much smaller rocks are still dangerous.

A 60-foot-wide meteor that exploded over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk in 2013 injured more than 1,200 people.

Because of the nature of the threat, researchers are studying strategies to protect the Earth from major impacts. In 2022, NASA’s Dart probe intentionally crashed into Dimorphos, a small moon of the asteroid called Didymos. The mission showed that the Earth’s kinetic influence could be protected, but that the boost would have to be delivered years before the impact would occur.

The nuclear option for asteroids is bigger, especially when time is limited. This does not include shooting at asteroids, or using the Bruce Willis technique in the movie Armageddon of dropping bombs into drill holes. An unstable explosion is more effective, which destroys part of the asteroid’s surface and leaves the rest to Newton’s third law of motion.

To test their idea, Moore and his colleagues set up an unprecedented experiment that exposed fragments of a rogue asteroid to powerful X-ray pulses similar to those released in a nuclear explosion. The pulse first dislodges the supports holding the material in place and then moves rapidly over the surface of the target, creating a gas that expands and propels it away.

Writing in Nature Physics, the researchers explain how the dummy asteroids were hit by gravity immediately after their supports were destroyed, but fell less than 2 millionths of a millimeter before the test 20 microsecond to complete. Fragments of the rogue asteroid were thrown at speeds of nearly 200 mph.

This strategy should be applicable to asteroids up to 2.5 miles wide, scientists say, but that’s not a clear cut. “If there was enough warning time, larger asteroids could be rejected,” Moore said.

Professor Colin Snodgrass from the Dart mission science team at the University of Edinburgh said it was important to understand how to scale up the results to full-sized asteroids. The European Space Agency’s Hera mission, due to launch next month, will help study Dart’s impact on Dimorphos.

Professor Gareth Collins, a planetary scientist at Imperial College, called Moore’s experiment “brilliant”. “I still prefer non-nuclear options, especially single or multiple kinetic impactors, because we know they are technologically feasible,” he said. “But for very large asteroids or short warning times, maybe that this kind of approach is our only option.”