If a Big Meteoroid was headed straight at us...Would there be a way to stop it from hitting Earth?

Question

If a Big Meteoroid was headed straight at us...Would there be a way to stop it from hitting Earth?

Answer 1

depends on the size, how much time we have, etc...

Answer 2

shot a missle at it.it depends on how big the meteroid is then you'll know then how to stop it.you could shoot a missle but then it would break everywhere and land somewhere eles.so it wouldnt really be a way to stop it unless we find soemthing to hit it back in space or soemthing.

Answer 3

the old theory was to blast it out of the sky with atomic weapons, but they say now that would cause a "shotgun" effect that may be as bad as a full force hit.  last i heard is a nuclear blast near the meteroid could be used not to destroy it but to "nudge" it off course enough to miss us.

Answer 4

We would have to know about it years in advance in order to do anything to change its orbit enough to avoid an impact.

Answer 5

i would say go to space and blow it up.......so then it'll rain rocks instead of the whole "worlds end" dilema....

Answer 6

There are a number of proposals.  In all of these, the more warning you have, the easier it is.  Moving a Mt. Everest sized object is not easy, even in space.

The short list.

Paint it.  Let the Sun's light push it.

Fire a powerful laser at it.  This vaporizes a little bit of it, which then acts like a rocket engine pushing the rest of it in one direction.  The laser could come from the Sun - using a big mirror to focus the light.

Detonate a nuke or lots of nukes next to it.  Again, we're trying to vaporize bits of the object for thrust.  Breaking the object up into lots of little objects may be worse than doing nothing.

Land a mass driver on it.  This device digs material from the object and tosses them into space.  This provides thrust.

Hover next to it with a large, heavy space ship.  Uses the mutual gravity of the space ship and the object to move the object.  Don't point the space ship's thrusters at the object!  This idea has the feature that you don't need to know the structural integrity of the object.

The dinosaurs went extinct because they failed to maintain a robust space program.

<edit>

Sending Bruce Willis up - that plan does not work.

Answer 7

Depends how big. There are ways, have you not seen armageddon! Basically, if it ever happened, and the chances are it won't while you're alive, we could probably figure some way to deal with it. Scientists would work like crazy, most people will just say "Nuke it!" and the world will go nuts. So in answer there probably would. They would call up Bruce Willis... :)

Answer 8

it depends on when it will hit earth.

If its in the next month: we are all dead/ .01% chance of gov't thinking up a solution,

If we a year before it hits: we can come up with something. we can detonate nukes beside the meteoroid to nudge it off course.

Right now we have no solution, everything is in planning stages. Some solutions include solar sails, lasers, nukes and drilling machines

Answer 9

We have before, but it was a test and the meteoroid wasn't near us. We hit it, saw the explosion in the sky, and nothing rained down on earth. Summer of 2005 in Hawaii

Answer 10

I doubt it, but it sounds like a great plot for a movie...:)

Answer 11

Action agenda

Thwarting the threat of Earth-colliding asteroids – is on the action agenda list for former Apollo astronaut, Russell L. (Rusty) Schweickart.

While a civilization-smashing impact from a space object is a low probability, it is not zero…and there are other trouble-makers out there too. They are the smaller asteroids, in far greater number and could wreak havoc on our world, but in a more localized way.

Speaking recently at a Secure World Foundation luncheon at the University of Colorado - Boulder, Schweickart emphasized that what is needed is an international protocol – “mission rules” -- that deal with asteroids that are menacing to Earth. Such a plan could calls upon nations around the globe to consider and embrace steps that can help mitigate the destructive nature stemming from an asteroid striking our planet.

Answer 12

Ever seen the movie Armageddon? ;)

Answer 13

It would depend on how much time we had before it hit. We couldn't just blow it up like in the movies, because all the remnants of the meteor would then rain down on us, but if we could nudge it a little a long time before impact we might be able to make it miss us altogether.

Answer 14

THERE ARE A LOT OF SCIENCE FICTION METHODS BUT THERE AREN'T ANY PROVEN METHODS. WE WOULD PROBABLY DISINTEGRATE.

Answer 15

Your word "big" is relative. I was about to ask "how big" but, actually, when I think about it, it doesn't matter.

We have no way of stopping a rock of any size from hitting Earth.

There are several methods on the drawing board but nothing in the works yet.

Answer 16

I don't see how....given the range of our weapons even capable of reaching space, we could probably blow it up and have a billion little explosions instead of one big one, but it still makes for a nuclear winter-like dust cloud to block out the sun and kill us all...of course, Bruce WIllis could probably do it, with the right team...

Answer 17

If there were , the Democrats would not let us try it. Just like the drilling ,so we all go down together and trying to do something about it...

Answer 18

Yes, but we don't now have the technology.