Cure Can Be Worse Than Disease in Case of Nuclear Bombing of Asteroids, Says KFU Professor

Dr. Yury Nefedyev commented on a recent publication.

In the paper, scientists of Russian Federal Nuclear Center and Troitsk Institute of Innovation and Fusion Research suggested creating miniature copies of dangerous asteroids and then model nuclear bombing with lasers.

Our expert offered his outlook on the problem, “There is a significant number of proposals pertaining to the Earth’s defense from asteroid danger. Recently, it has become commonplace that a nuclear blast on an asteroid can lead to catastrophic consequences. The resulting debris can bring more destruction to the planet than the asteroid itself. We cannot predict what the contents of a particular asteroid are, and many of them also have complex rotational movement. That’s why there is only so much precision in the calculations of how a body will disintegrate and where the debris will end up. The authors themselves mention that.”

However, there are other ways to deflect calamity, as our interviewee noted.

“If we position an artificial satellite near an asteroid, it will deviate from the orbit even from such small gravity. Another way to change the orbit is to place a mirror on the asteroid. It will be affected by the solar wind and thus will also change the direction. The third method is placing analogues of rocket engines on the asteroid and correcting its movement directly. By the way, a blast can be one such ‘engine’. There are also other ways. Unfortunately, none of these methods is technically viable in the nearest future. The only thing that we can thus far do after discovering such an asteroid is to monitor it and conduct model experiments. Conversely, there are plans to transport some asteroids closer to our planet because they can consist of vast amounts of rare minerals used in our economy.”