CLOSE CALL
Armageddon-style plan to fire nukes at deadly asteroids revealed after close flyby of ‘God of Destruction’ space rock
One of Earth's closest near-misses occurred only a few years ago.
SCIENTISTS have unveiled an Armageddon-style plan to fire nukes at asteroids that may be considered a threat to Earth.
The Hollywood-esque plot suggests detonating a nuclear bomb roughly a mile away from the space rock to help knock it off course.
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Scientists believe the explosion, and the blast of X-ray radiation that comes with it, could be enough to deflect an oncoming impact.
“The vaporised material shoots off one side, pushing the asteroid in the opposite direction,” said Dr Nathan Moore, the first author on the new study from Sandia National Laboratory.
“It’s like turning the asteroid into its own rocket.”
It comes just a week after fears of a collision with city-killer asteroid Apophis, nicknamed 'God of Destruction', were reignited.
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Apophis is scheduled to make an intimidatingly close flyby of Earth on Friday 13, 2029.
The near-Earth object is expected to pass around 19,800 miles (32,000km) of Earth, closer than some satellites, where some stargazers may be able to see it with the naked eye.
No asteroid is expected to come as close for a few thousand years.
And if Apophis is hit by other space rocks on its journey around the solar system, there is a one in a billion chance it's path may be diverted to collide with Earth.
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Now, those are still pretty good odds.
But scientists are well aware that cataclysmic asteroid strikes are not reserved for the dinosaurs, and the dinosaurs alone.
Earth's closest near-misses
One of Earth's closest near-misses occurred only a few years ago.
Asteroid VT4, which is estimated to be just five to 10 metres in diameter, came as close as 383 km to Earth's surface in 2020.
Another close encounter happened on 31 March 2004, when meteoroid FU162 zoomed past just 6500km above Earth's surface.
But as experts at the Royal Greenwich Observatory explain, both these asteroids would have been relatively harmless.
"FU162 is only 10m across, so if it had collided with the Earth it would almost certainly have exploded harmlessly in the upper atmosphere," experts said.
Then in May 1996, asteroid JA1 passed the Earth 450,000km away - which is about as far away as the Moon.
Origin of asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs is FOUND
Space rocks are still a risk to life on Earth, which is why researchers are throwing their weight behind upping our planetary defences.
Last year, Nasa proved it could successfully deflect an asteroid with its DART mission, which saw it crash a spacecraft into space rock Dimorphos.
However, Dimorphos is a fairly small asteroid as space rocks go, at about 525-foot-wide.
Asteroid Apophis is roughly double that, and is wide as the Eiffel Tower is long.
While the rock that took out the dinosaurs 66million years ago is believed to have been six miles wide.
What's the difference between an asteroid, meteor and comet?
Here's what you need to know, according to Nasa...
- Asteroid: An asteroid is a small rocky body that orbits the Sun. Most are found in the asteroid belt (between Mars and Jupiter) but they can be found anywhere (including in a path that can impact Earth)
- Meteoroid: When two asteroids hit each other, the small chunks that break off are called meteoroids
- Meteor: If a meteoroid enters the Earth’s atmosphere, it begins to vapourise and then becomes a meteor. On Earth, it’ll look like a streak of light in the sky, because the rock is burning up
- Meteorite: If a meteoroid doesn’t vapourise completely and survives the trip through Earth’s atmosphere, it can land on the Earth. At that point, it becomes a meteorite
- Comet: Like asteroids, a comet orbits the Sun. However rather than being made mostly of rock, a comet contains lots of ice and gas, which can result in amazing tails forming behind them (thanks to the ice and dust vaporizing)
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