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Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / How could we stop a killer meteor or asteroid?
« on: 31/05/2008 03:32:44 »Tomislav Belosic asked the Naked Scientists:
it is said that we would probably have difficulty to actually spot anything that might be approaching us.
the likelihood of us spotting a meteor is probably higher than you expect (i cannot give numbers sorry) though we may end up just panicking. we track hundreds of thousands of "hazards" in space. keep in mind, "quite high" still not a very good chance.
Tomislav Belosic asked the Naked Scientists:
My question is: in case we do spot a large, extinction-event worthy meteor on a collision course with Earth couple of years in advance would there be any way to stop it? And if so, how would we do it?
we have a few options on what to do when we find it:
we could nuke it and it would mostly burn up in the atmosphere
we could tow it away although this requires years of notice
we could attach a rocket to it. again, this would take at least a year
an odd option is we focus the suns rays on it using a parabolic mirror and hope the vaporising bits of rock would propel it
each one (except the nuke) would take years so bombing it remains the best option until we discover one
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