The next time a hazardous asteroid lines Earth up in its crosshairs, we may be ready for the threat.
Scientists and engineers with the U.S. government have drawn up plans for a spacecraft that could knock big, incoming space rocks off course via blunt-force impact or blow them to bits with a nuclear warhead, BuzzFeed News reported.
The researchers announced the concept vehicle, known as the Hypervelocity Asteroid Mitigation Mission for Emergency Response (HAMMER), in a study in the February issue of the journal Acta Astronautica. And the team will discuss HAMMER at an asteroid-research conference in May, according to BuzzFeed News.
By Mike Wall – Full Story at Live Science
Unless they are sure that they can atomize an asteroid or comet head the idea is highly controversial and goes back quite a few years. Which is worse, 1 big hit or dozens of shotgun hits from a broken up body? Asteroids are highly variable in density and makeup from iron boulders such as the one that made Meteor Crater in Arizona to rubble piles which are going to come apart on entering the Earth atmosphere and the deployers of bombs better be sure of the makeup of the item they decide to use bombs against. Also a comet coming out from rounding the sun may give minimal warning. The whole comet and asteroid defense scenario is still very much a large can of worms.