A question about space

Question

would a missile with a a war head divert a meteor away from us if it were detonated in space near the piece of rock on a collision course with the earth and why wouldn't it work

Answer 1

On earth a bomb produces a shock wave in the air which blows everything away form it.    Space doesn't have any air for the bomb to push around so the only thing that would hit the meteor would be particle of the bomb itself.     The bomb fragments wouldn't have enough mass to do much more then punch a few holes in the meteor.    

Answer 2

The answer to your question is dependent upon the trajectory, size and mass of the meteor.

Some dependence would be regarding the type and potential (megaton) of the missile.

If you are really interested, you can find more information by searching "SPACE WATCH'".

Good Luck!

Answer 3

No, it won't work.  Detonations work in Earth warfare because they create a supersonic shock wave in the surrounding air.  (Subsonic explosions are "deflagrations," and may still cause damage.)  With no air, only whatever matter is contained in the warhead and its explosives will be ejected and apply a dynamic fluid pressure on the object.  The magnitude of such a force would be considerably small.

To divert a incoming object, notice it early and use rocket motors to nudge it into an orbit that misses Earth.

Answer 4

If the shock wave of the explosion is strong enought yes.

The key is how far the meteor is. If it's too close to Earth, the explosion to divert the asteroid would have to be mighty  big and certainly beyond our technology today.

But if the asteroid is far enough way, then an even modest explosion and shock wave could be enough, becuase the farther the asteroid is from the Earth, the more a small explosion can make the angle of the asteroid shift signicantly.

If you draw on a piece of paper a circle being the Earth, and two points A and B, A being really close to ''Earth'' and B at the edge of the paper, you will see that if you draw a line that just passes to the left or right of the circle the angle is pretty sharp on the A dot but much less of an angle on the B dot.

Stupid me, Clavius is right. You have to actually nudge the asteroid, you can't just detonate ahead of it and hope it moves, it won't.

The only way to move the asteroid without touching it would be to somehow create a stronger gravitational pull, but that's beyond our technology right now.

Answer 5

Tobias might be right.  But I am not sure that there would be a shock wave.  There is no air.

Answer 6

It depends on the trajectory of the meteor and the angle in which the explosion occurs.