Asteroid deflection?

Question

Do you think humanity can really pull it off. I mean I saw what deep impact can do to a comet. It created a huge f***ing crater at least the size of 4 to 5 football fields just by ramming it. What if a nuke hit it?

Answer 1

If a nuke hit it it would break a piece off, not stop it. If it's big enough to pass the atmosphere, a nuke doesn't stand a chance.

You mixed up comets and asteroids and meteors. A comet is a ball of ice and gas that circles around the sun, never reaching a planet. An asteroid is simply a piece of rock, flying through the emptiness of space. A meteor hits a planet. To be more specific a meteorite does, a meteor evaporates in the atmosphere.

Answer 2

Well we have several answers. If seen early enough we could send a nuke at it and blow it up, this would break it apart and move it off of it's trajectory with the earth. We could send a nuke to explode near it, this will not break it up but move it off course. We have discussed placing lasers on the moon so if we see an asteroid we can shoot lasers at it until it moves away from earth. We only need to slightly move an asteroid to move it away from Earth. we could also land a satellite on it and use thrusters to move it away.

Answer 3

i like the idea of merely painting one side of it.

doesn't even matter if its rotating, you can pick an area that is MOSTLY pointed at the Sun and let the solar wind push it a few degrees off.

besides, think of all the employees at the paint companies... that all relocated to China...

oh, nevermind.

Answer 4

You might change the course of an asteroid if you

spotted the danger early enough.

You would NOT want to break the thing up.

That would increase the damage.

Answer 5

we should send a bunch of suicidal people into a rocket hurdling to the asteroid and watch. when the rocket hits it we then observe how tiny it will break into but the problem now becomes:how do we send the bits and pieces of blasted rocket ,dead people and an asteroid away from us. it is a fool proof plan as in no fool can make an idea dumber than this.