‘The most effective technique, we think, would be to have an explosion of a nuclear device several hundred meters from the surface of the asteroid,’ he told Politico.
‘The nuclear radiation causes superheating of the asteroid surface and imparts a force on the asteroid in the opposite direction.’
However, simply firing a nuclear missile directly into the asteroid could cause radioactive dust and debris to rain down on Earth.
‘Blow it up into bitty pieces and then you have a bunch of buckshot headed at you,’ Mr Johnson said.
‘You haven’t changed the direction of it. You have just broken it up into pieces, some of which the Earth’s atmosphere may take care of but maybe not at all.’
Source: Read Full Article