We only have a list of bad options to choose from.
If the planet intersecting with the whole cloud of fragments all at once is like a person taking a shotgun blast to the torso, then the planet grazing just some of the fragments, and at the right angle, is like getting shot with one tiny pellet at a time—and with a breather between hits. “If the fragments are small enough, this might be okay,” William Bottke, an expert in asteroids at the Southwest Research Institute in Colorado, told The Daily Beast.
The problem, of course, is that waiting is scary: taking the best shot at a dangerous asteroid might also require us to watch that asteroid barrel toward us for years or even decades. An extinction-level game of chicken.Taking the best shot at a dangerous asteroid might also require us to watch that asteroid barrel toward us for years or even decadesWorse, if our belated attempt to blow up the asteroid fails, we might not have much time left to figure out a plan B.
But far fewer than would result from a nuclear demolition. Non-explosive deflection missions “can be repeated, in case a first try is not successful or proves insufficient,” Binzel said. And we could start attempting them the moment we detect a dangerous asteroid, rather than waiting until the terrifying last moment.
But it’s possible we’re underestimating, by a lot, how much force it takes to nudge away a planet-wrecking asteroid. “It’s really hard,”In the worst-case scenario—a civilization-ending asteroid heading for a direct impact with Earth, perhaps just a few decades after we first spot it—we might not have any good options. Just different bad ones.
Our choices might come down to: waiting on, and gambling big on, a powerful nuclear demolition that prevents global catastrophe—but at the cost of a few cities and potentially millions of lives; or trying, year after year, to deflect the rock. Repeated redirection efforts that could result in repeated redirection
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