January 12, 2010 • 17 mins
Asteroid impacts are inevitable. As they hurtle toward Earth, experts race against the clock to build an effective asteroid deterrent. Will they succeed in time? Learn more about asteroid fighters -- and their plans to save the world -- in this episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff from the Science Lab from how stuff
works dot com. Wow, guy us, and welcome to the podcast.
This is Alison d'Or with, the science editor at how
stuff works dot com. And this is Robert Lamb, science
writer for how stuff works dot com. So you we're
(00:23):
talking about fighting asteroids, some of our best strategies for
fighting these bad boys in the sky. Yeah, these um
near Earth asteroids or any a's. So what do you
think the chances are we'll make it through this podcast
without getting struck by an any a? Um? Well, what
are your best estimates, robber best estimates? Well, if I
(00:44):
wanted to tempt fate, I would just say there's a
zero percent chance that an asteroid would take us out
before we're done here. But there's always a chance point.
Oh maybe that's pretty high, is it? Yeah? Well, what
are the acts? What do the experts say? Well, the
experts diverge wildly this topic. Actually, I mean, we get
(01:05):
people who are saying one in ten will add odds
of us being hit by a near Earth asteroid the planet,
not the podcast, right, yeah, the planet one in ten
in the next century. And then you have people who
are saying, you know, maybe more like one in three thousand.
But one thing they do agree on is it's a
question of when and not if. Certainly um. I mean,
if we need any proof of that, you just look
(01:26):
around the Earth or just look at the Moon. We've
seen how things have have These asteroids have wiped out
Earth or at least notably redecorated it um in the past, right, Yeah,
with the signs are there, and human time is just
nothing compared to the cosmic time we're dealing with. Right,
(01:46):
space is infinitely patient. They'll get us sooner or later. Yeah,
what are we gonna do? That's the big question, right, Yeah, Well,
NASA definitely has an interest in this, and it's a
it's floated some ideas before, but there are plenty of
observatories all around the world that are searching the skies
and keep in chock of these um any as, if
you will. And what an ny A is, specifically, um
(02:07):
is a asteroid that's greater than a kilometer in size.
So those are the ones that scientists think could really
have the most damage, worldwide damage and could result in
your favorite topic, civilization destruction or whatever, the end of
the world nuclear impact, the impact winter, Yeah, which is
like nuclear winter, except it would be caused by an
(02:29):
asteroid hitting the Earth. And that's also what some people
think happened to the dinosaurs with the what was it
the KT boundary, Yeah, K boundary. And then you have
smaller scale staff too, like Tunska or the big old
crater down in Ukatan. So so there's plenty of evidence
of these guys hit in the Earth before. So we've
come up with some plans to to foil these asteroids,
(02:52):
and we should emphasize that they're all on the very
very very beginning stages. Right there's you know, some of them,
you know, Nasty a scientist or whoever have have actually
you know, worked out schematics and plans for other things.
We're dealing very much with the theoretical. Um yeah, almost
science science fiction. Yeah, a lot of a lot of
stuff is gonna sound pretty sci fi. Yeah, I mean,
(03:13):
what do you I mean, that's what you get when
you get a bunch of scientists in the same room
and stuff like the Planetary Defense Council. You know, they're
just gonna come up with some crazy ideas. And we're
going to talk about some of those ideas today right now. Inevitably,
like earlier we talked about, you know, stopping a hurricane,
and of course one of the instant things again to
mind was can we blow it up with a nuclear weapon?
(03:35):
So of course people have thought about asteroids the same way.
Can't we just launch a nuclear missile at it and
blow it up and then we don't have to worry
about it anymore? Right? Right? Wrong? Because the whole the
whole thing is that if you it's not not necessarily
like that video of the video game Asteroids, right, is
(03:55):
that what it was called asteroids? Yeah? Sorry, I was
a very good at it. Yeah, where you just you
blow them up, don't have to worry about them anymore.
In reality, though, it would turn an incoming asteroid into
like asteroid shrapnel, into they're just like cosmic buckshot coming
towards the planet. Like you might be able to turn
and say that one of those one kilometer wide civilization
(04:16):
busters into a whole bunch of smaller ones. But each
of these smaller ones could then still cause catastrophic damaged
wherever they hit. So the idea is to not destroy
the asteroid, but deflected change its course a little. Because
we're a very small, tiny speck in the universe and
in the galaxy. So why you know, there's plenty of
(04:38):
room out there. Let's just push these guys aside and
let them carry on their business elsewhere. So you detonate
the nuke in the vicinity of the aside. You would
perform a stand off clear blast. I think, yes, you
perform a standoff nuclear blast. And the idea here is, yeah,
you you detonate the nuclear weapon a good distance from
the asteroid from the incoming asteroid, and not the blast,
(05:01):
but the radiation that moves out from the blast would
push the asteroid off course. Okay, okay, I see that.
So it's kind of like throwing like a bowling ball
and a kid's pool to move it a little toy
butter right. Yeah, if you can imagine like a kid's
pool with a boat in it, throw a bowling ball
in and the waves from the bowling ball would move
a little boat. Okay, all right, So we got nukes
(05:23):
and then tagging onto this is this thing called the
kinetic um. What is it called the kinetic Oh yeah,
just a Well, NASA has has laid out designs for
a nuclear interceptor which would in theory, deliver these nuclear
warheads to deliver a standoff nuclear blast, but they also
have a kinetic interceptor. In the early planning stages, and
(05:45):
basically the whole idea here is people were saying, Hey,
I don't know. You know, we're trying to disarm the planet,
so we don't destroy ourselves with nuclear weapons. Maybe you
know we we don't need to keep them around just
to try and blow up asteroids or knock them off course. Um,
So the people say, we can just use kinetic energy
to send the asteroid off of its path of destruction.
And that just means what it sounds like, taking the
(06:07):
spaceship without a new Google weapon in it, um rocket, etcetera,
and just running it straight into the asteroid, not enough
to shatter it into a million pieces or anything, but
enough to just tap it. Yeah, I give it a
little nudge off course, little galactic nudge is what we're
after here. I'm crazy hit thing here is you really
don't need um much of an impact if you get
it far enough ahead of far enough ahead of time. Um.
(06:29):
Over at space dot com, they were saying that a
mile per hour impact would be enough to divert the
asteroid by like a hundred seventy thousand miles if you
got to it in time. And so I think that
would be like a twenty years ahead of the predicted collisions.
We're talking like electric car speed bam right into it. Yeah. Yeah.
And then I mean as outside of the nukes, there's
(06:50):
this whole um body of tactics that involves solar radiation. Yes,
we have several designs that involve solar powered or old mechanics.
And to to really understand this first again, think about
the nuke blowing up in the radiation, pushing the the
asteroid off course. Now think about a really sunny day.
(07:12):
What are you gonna wear outside? Are you're gonna wear
a black robe or you're gonna wear like a white
pant suit. I'm never gonna wear a white pant suit,
but yessing in this in this scenario, yes, I would
wear the white pants suits exact because because it deflects
more solar radiation than it absorbs, whereas the black robe
would just absorb all the solar radiation. So one particular
(07:36):
plan calls for essentially dressing the asteroid in a white
pant suit, or more accurately painting it or dusting it
a lighter color, because then it will deflect more solar radiation,
and the solar radiation will then give it enough of
a push to move it off course. Right, It will
end up put pushing off. The solar radiation that is
deflected off of the asteroid will push it off of
(07:58):
its current course. And that's good for us, right, Yeah,
and and like so we like the white pants suit. Yeah,
this is a good option. The problem though, is in
actually applying this light colored dusting to the asteroid, because
they're they're not really clear on that. I mean, Robert
and I talked to maybe about like a crop duster
type of approach. But the mechanics of painting something white,
(08:20):
you know, while it's moving, and you know, landing there
in the first place are are certainly the idea of
landing a crew of little robots that will gradually paint
the whole thing. Yeah, put some advertising slogos. Can you
imagine how much of those would go? First? Oh yeah,
Sea Rock City and print on the side of the asteroid.
And then in the same solar radiation body of ideas,
(08:43):
we have the solar cell right and this, uh, this
is a very similar idea. And instead of painting it
or you know, or dusting it. You just choice to
sail up a big solar solar panel just mounted to
the top of the asteroid, which you know, we we've
we've landed things on asteroids before, so it can be done. Indeed,
we have arrows. However, we haven't really set up shop
(09:06):
on any of these asteroids. We haven't like erected any
kind of a structure that so some people say we
would want to control it we basically steer the asteroid,
and then other people were like, the things going to
be spinning, you know. Um, it's just they're saying it's
not very They're saying it would be very difficult to navigate. Yeah,
an asteroid with a sale on top. OHI mani um.
(09:31):
And then there's another solar radiation tactic that we've got
in the books. Yes there is, um and this one
nut is pretty cool because it sounds very much like
something Wiley Coyote would would pull out. And that is
the big solar net. Ah, yes, right, the solar net.
And this isn't really what you picture. I mean because
we talked about this at first, and I just picture
(09:53):
you know, the population of the world kind of holding
this net up to block the Earth from this catastrophic asteroid.
It's on its way in and then bang, you know
that the net holds up at the last minute and
it's rocketed back into space. But that is not actually
not quite the approach that the scientists have a have
for this one. It's more about draping the astrat in
(10:15):
question in this giant net that would be made of
a solar reflective substance, and again trying to generate that
solar radiation effect. But the problem here, of course is
draping an asteroid with the net is um not the
easiest task to carry out. Yeah, I mean, how you
can get up there? You just can hold it and
you know, let it fly through it. You're gonna put
(10:36):
leaves over it and throughout some asteroid bait. I mean,
fishermen have a hard enough time untangling their nets in
the ocean. I can't imagine us doing it in outer space. Okay,
And then there's a there's actually one more solar related
uh deflection technique, but it's a little different. Um, go
back again to the black robe versus white pantsuit. This
idea is more black robe related, and this has to
(10:58):
do with simply using they used to say one big mirror,
but now most plans are talking about several different mirrors
to redirect solar radiation, uh, solar energy and concentrated in
at an uncoming asteroid. Okay. And then the idea is
the asteroid absorbs the solar radiation and it heats up
the surface. Right. And and also it's important we wouldn't
(11:21):
be talking about the entire asteroid. We'll be talking to
like concentrating in a one area. So this is very
um you know, it's kind of like the ant and
the magnifying glass kind of a deal, you know. Um. So,
they concentrate the solar energy on the asteroid, on this
one portion of portion of its surface, and then it
heats up and uh begins to emit vapors. It kind
(11:42):
of like a debris plume almost right, exactly. Yeah, I
think they refer to it. And they even used the
verb eject subjects of debris from the surface. And that
acts like a thruster. That's stuff rising up from the surface,
pushing the asteroid off of its original course. Okay, And
again we have to stress, like like we said earlier,
we're talking about we're not talking massive changes right after bat.
(12:05):
We're talking about hitting these things early enough to where
very small changes will make will ultimately make very large changes.
So sure, I think they also call this method laser
sublimation because you're trying to sublimate the surface of the
atmosphere with that concentrated um son. And then of course
their rockets. Rockets are always in the picture when you
(12:28):
discuss any space plan, and this is basically what you
think it would be, which is just strapping a rocket
to the asteroid and then um, you know, having that
propel the asteroid. So the problem with this one, and
their problems with all of these, as you guys have
already figured out, is that fuel could be a bit
(12:50):
of an issue. Yeah, because you've gotta get all the
way out there to the asteroid that could be what
like twenty years away, and then once you get the
rocket mounted on the sir, this, you've got a fuel
that rocket, so that's going to take fuel as well,
right right, right, So I don't know if that asteroid
would look lovely wearing a rocket. So let's move on
to our next approach, which is the grav tractor. Yeah,
(13:13):
and this one sounds very sci fi because it's it's
like tractor beam or something and uh, and it is
pretty pretty science fiction when you get down to it. Um.
And this one involves the principle that that in anything
out there has a it's gonna have a gravitational pull.
Whether you're talking about an asteroid or man made a spacecraft,
(13:34):
everything exerves a gravitational pool. So if we were to
get a big spaceship to go out there to this
asteroid and sort of hanging out around it or perhaps
and and then it just sort of begins to move,
and the asteroid moves with it because it is caught
up in the ship's gravitational pool. Right, So the tractors
(13:56):
up acting is kind of a cosmic tugboat, yeah, cosmic tugboat, Yeah,
pulling the astronaut off its fatal collision course. But again,
I mean, how how are we going to get this
giant cosmic tug about tug boat up into the space.
I mean, we don't have such a good track record
with getting spacecraft up there now. So if you can
imagine this giant tug boat being launched, it's it's kind
(14:18):
of an insane thought to get it out there. And
then and then how big would it have to be?
And then I've also read where people were concerned that
you'd have to have it would have to use thrusters
to keep from crashing into the asteroid that it's trying
to pull away, and that could counteract counter at that
could counter at the gravitational pull right, okay, all right,
(14:40):
and then of course we get to the robots. I
love the robots. Yeah, this one. If the last one
was science fictionally, this one's even more science fiction. Uh.
And it's just sending hungry robots to the asteroid, which
is actually that's it's an actual program. This is not
just a hair brained idea idea NASA's NASA has funded
the Modular Asteroid Deflection Mission ejector NODE or mad Men project.
(15:06):
It's really not that different from the rocket idea that
we discussed earlier. Like we said the rocket to deal
with the rockets. As you get a rocket there strap
into the planet, how are you going to fuel it? Right? Well,
in this case, the asteroid is it is the fuel.
The robots would chew up the surface and then they
would eject the material from the surface with a mass driver.
(15:30):
For in for any of you sci fi fans or
video game fishion nadas out there, this is a lot
like a rail gun, and we have an article on
this side about railguns if you want to learn more
about that. So, yeah, it's just using electromagnetism and these
coils to eject material at a really high speed, so
no fuel needed. The robots would be nuclear powered, and
(15:51):
they would create their thrust by by just chewing up
the asteroid and just spitting it. I think that's my favorite.
I'm not sure it could be the nut the nets
retty good, but the chewing robots would make a good movie.
And yeah, definitely, why better than armaged? I'm almost definitely sure.
So that's really all of the concrete ideas that scientists have.
(16:12):
And then of course there's always when all those fails panic,
So you'd want to build a bunker and um, you'd
want to brush up on your your road for your
rules and weapons. Definitely definitely. Oh and then here's my
favorite part. You definitely want to leave a note for
the next dominant species on Earth that evolves after said
(16:33):
nuclear winter impact. Yeah, and you want that to be
the giant squid. I think I think it might be
the cockroach, although I certainly hope it's not. Maybe they
can power sharing there, Yeah, If you want to check
out any of these articles on asteroids or asteroid mining
or what's going on in space, visit how staff works
dot com or visit our science blog, Science Stuff at
(16:57):
blogs dot hastaff works dot com. Hey for I listened
to the podcast and keep on fighting the good fight
against the asteroids. For more on this and thousands of
other topics, is it how stuff works dot com. Want
more how stuff works, check out our blogs on the
(17:19):
house stuff works dot com home page
Welcome to Stuff from the Science Lab from how stuff
works dot com. Wow, guy us, and welcome to the podcast.
This is Alison d'Or with, the science editor at how
stuff works dot com. And this is Robert Lamb, science
writer for how stuff works dot com. So you we're
(00:23):
talking about fighting asteroids, some of our best strategies for
fighting these bad boys in the sky. Yeah, these um
near Earth asteroids or any a's. So what do you
think the chances are we'll make it through this podcast
without getting struck by an any a? Um? Well, what
are your best estimates, robber best estimates? Well, if I
(00:44):
wanted to tempt fate, I would just say there's a
zero percent chance that an asteroid would take us out
before we're done here. But there's always a chance point.
Oh maybe that's pretty high, is it? Yeah? Well, what
are the acts? What do the experts say? Well, the
experts diverge wildly this topic. Actually, I mean, we get
(01:05):
people who are saying one in ten will add odds
of us being hit by a near Earth asteroid the planet,
not the podcast, right, yeah, the planet one in ten
in the next century. And then you have people who
are saying, you know, maybe more like one in three thousand.
But one thing they do agree on is it's a
question of when and not if. Certainly um. I mean,
if we need any proof of that, you just look
(01:26):
around the Earth or just look at the Moon. We've
seen how things have have These asteroids have wiped out
Earth or at least notably redecorated it um in the past, right, Yeah,
with the signs are there, and human time is just
nothing compared to the cosmic time we're dealing with. Right,
(01:46):
space is infinitely patient. They'll get us sooner or later. Yeah,
what are we gonna do? That's the big question, right, Yeah, Well,
NASA definitely has an interest in this, and it's a
it's floated some ideas before, but there are plenty of
observatories all around the world that are searching the skies
and keep in chock of these um any as, if
you will. And what an ny A is, specifically, um
(02:07):
is a asteroid that's greater than a kilometer in size.
So those are the ones that scientists think could really
have the most damage, worldwide damage and could result in
your favorite topic, civilization destruction or whatever, the end of
the world nuclear impact, the impact winter, Yeah, which is
like nuclear winter, except it would be caused by an
(02:29):
asteroid hitting the Earth. And that's also what some people
think happened to the dinosaurs with the what was it
the KT boundary, Yeah, K boundary. And then you have
smaller scale staff too, like Tunska or the big old
crater down in Ukatan. So so there's plenty of evidence
of these guys hit in the Earth before. So we've
come up with some plans to to foil these asteroids,
(02:52):
and we should emphasize that they're all on the very
very very beginning stages. Right there's you know, some of them,
you know, Nasty a scientist or whoever have have actually
you know, worked out schematics and plans for other things.
We're dealing very much with the theoretical. Um yeah, almost
science science fiction. Yeah, a lot of a lot of
stuff is gonna sound pretty sci fi. Yeah, I mean,
(03:13):
what do you I mean, that's what you get when
you get a bunch of scientists in the same room
and stuff like the Planetary Defense Council. You know, they're
just gonna come up with some crazy ideas. And we're
going to talk about some of those ideas today right now. Inevitably,
like earlier we talked about, you know, stopping a hurricane,
and of course one of the instant things again to
mind was can we blow it up with a nuclear weapon?
(03:35):
So of course people have thought about asteroids the same way.
Can't we just launch a nuclear missile at it and
blow it up and then we don't have to worry
about it anymore? Right? Right? Wrong? Because the whole the
whole thing is that if you it's not not necessarily
like that video of the video game Asteroids, right, is
(03:55):
that what it was called asteroids? Yeah? Sorry, I was
a very good at it. Yeah, where you just you
blow them up, don't have to worry about them anymore.
In reality, though, it would turn an incoming asteroid into
like asteroid shrapnel, into they're just like cosmic buckshot coming
towards the planet. Like you might be able to turn
and say that one of those one kilometer wide civilization
(04:16):
busters into a whole bunch of smaller ones. But each
of these smaller ones could then still cause catastrophic damaged
wherever they hit. So the idea is to not destroy
the asteroid, but deflected change its course a little. Because
we're a very small, tiny speck in the universe and
in the galaxy. So why you know, there's plenty of
(04:38):
room out there. Let's just push these guys aside and
let them carry on their business elsewhere. So you detonate
the nuke in the vicinity of the aside. You would
perform a stand off clear blast. I think, yes, you
perform a standoff nuclear blast. And the idea here is, yeah,
you you detonate the nuclear weapon a good distance from
the asteroid from the incoming asteroid, and not the blast,
(05:01):
but the radiation that moves out from the blast would
push the asteroid off course. Okay, okay, I see that.
So it's kind of like throwing like a bowling ball
and a kid's pool to move it a little toy
butter right. Yeah, if you can imagine like a kid's
pool with a boat in it, throw a bowling ball
in and the waves from the bowling ball would move
a little boat. Okay, all right, So we got nukes
(05:23):
and then tagging onto this is this thing called the
kinetic um. What is it called the kinetic Oh yeah,
just a Well, NASA has has laid out designs for
a nuclear interceptor which would in theory, deliver these nuclear
warheads to deliver a standoff nuclear blast, but they also
have a kinetic interceptor. In the early planning stages, and
(05:45):
basically the whole idea here is people were saying, Hey,
I don't know. You know, we're trying to disarm the planet,
so we don't destroy ourselves with nuclear weapons. Maybe you
know we we don't need to keep them around just
to try and blow up asteroids or knock them off course. Um,
So the people say, we can just use kinetic energy
to send the asteroid off of its path of destruction.
And that just means what it sounds like, taking the
(06:07):
spaceship without a new Google weapon in it, um rocket, etcetera,
and just running it straight into the asteroid, not enough
to shatter it into a million pieces or anything, but
enough to just tap it. Yeah, I give it a
little nudge off course, little galactic nudge is what we're
after here. I'm crazy hit thing here is you really
don't need um much of an impact if you get
it far enough ahead of far enough ahead of time. Um.
(06:29):
Over at space dot com, they were saying that a
mile per hour impact would be enough to divert the
asteroid by like a hundred seventy thousand miles if you
got to it in time. And so I think that
would be like a twenty years ahead of the predicted collisions.
We're talking like electric car speed bam right into it. Yeah. Yeah.
And then I mean as outside of the nukes, there's
(06:50):
this whole um body of tactics that involves solar radiation. Yes,
we have several designs that involve solar powered or old mechanics.
And to to really understand this first again, think about
the nuke blowing up in the radiation, pushing the the
asteroid off course. Now think about a really sunny day.
(07:12):
What are you gonna wear outside? Are you're gonna wear
a black robe or you're gonna wear like a white
pant suit. I'm never gonna wear a white pant suit,
but yessing in this in this scenario, yes, I would
wear the white pants suits exact because because it deflects
more solar radiation than it absorbs, whereas the black robe
would just absorb all the solar radiation. So one particular
(07:36):
plan calls for essentially dressing the asteroid in a white
pant suit, or more accurately painting it or dusting it
a lighter color, because then it will deflect more solar radiation,
and the solar radiation will then give it enough of
a push to move it off course. Right, It will
end up put pushing off. The solar radiation that is
deflected off of the asteroid will push it off of
(07:58):
its current course. And that's good for us, right, Yeah,
and and like so we like the white pants suit. Yeah,
this is a good option. The problem though, is in
actually applying this light colored dusting to the asteroid, because
they're they're not really clear on that. I mean, Robert
and I talked to maybe about like a crop duster
type of approach. But the mechanics of painting something white,
(08:20):
you know, while it's moving, and you know, landing there
in the first place are are certainly the idea of
landing a crew of little robots that will gradually paint
the whole thing. Yeah, put some advertising slogos. Can you
imagine how much of those would go? First? Oh yeah,
Sea Rock City and print on the side of the asteroid.
And then in the same solar radiation body of ideas,
(08:43):
we have the solar cell right and this, uh, this
is a very similar idea. And instead of painting it
or you know, or dusting it. You just choice to
sail up a big solar solar panel just mounted to
the top of the asteroid, which you know, we we've
we've landed things on asteroids before, so it can be done. Indeed,
we have arrows. However, we haven't really set up shop
(09:06):
on any of these asteroids. We haven't like erected any
kind of a structure that so some people say we
would want to control it we basically steer the asteroid,
and then other people were like, the things going to
be spinning, you know. Um, it's just they're saying it's
not very They're saying it would be very difficult to navigate. Yeah,
an asteroid with a sale on top. OHI mani um.
(09:31):
And then there's another solar radiation tactic that we've got
in the books. Yes there is, um and this one
nut is pretty cool because it sounds very much like
something Wiley Coyote would would pull out. And that is
the big solar net. Ah, yes, right, the solar net.
And this isn't really what you picture. I mean because
we talked about this at first, and I just picture
(09:53):
you know, the population of the world kind of holding
this net up to block the Earth from this catastrophic asteroid.
It's on its way in and then bang, you know
that the net holds up at the last minute and
it's rocketed back into space. But that is not actually
not quite the approach that the scientists have a have
for this one. It's more about draping the astrat in
(10:15):
question in this giant net that would be made of
a solar reflective substance, and again trying to generate that
solar radiation effect. But the problem here, of course is
draping an asteroid with the net is um not the
easiest task to carry out. Yeah, I mean, how you
can get up there? You just can hold it and
you know, let it fly through it. You're gonna put
(10:36):
leaves over it and throughout some asteroid bait. I mean,
fishermen have a hard enough time untangling their nets in
the ocean. I can't imagine us doing it in outer space. Okay,
And then there's a there's actually one more solar related
uh deflection technique, but it's a little different. Um, go
back again to the black robe versus white pantsuit. This
idea is more black robe related, and this has to
(10:58):
do with simply using they used to say one big mirror,
but now most plans are talking about several different mirrors
to redirect solar radiation, uh, solar energy and concentrated in
at an uncoming asteroid. Okay. And then the idea is
the asteroid absorbs the solar radiation and it heats up
the surface. Right. And and also it's important we wouldn't
(11:21):
be talking about the entire asteroid. We'll be talking to
like concentrating in a one area. So this is very
um you know, it's kind of like the ant and
the magnifying glass kind of a deal, you know. Um. So,
they concentrate the solar energy on the asteroid, on this
one portion of portion of its surface, and then it
heats up and uh begins to emit vapors. It kind
(11:42):
of like a debris plume almost right, exactly. Yeah, I
think they refer to it. And they even used the
verb eject subjects of debris from the surface. And that
acts like a thruster. That's stuff rising up from the surface,
pushing the asteroid off of its original course. Okay, And
again we have to stress, like like we said earlier,
we're talking about we're not talking massive changes right after bat.
(12:05):
We're talking about hitting these things early enough to where
very small changes will make will ultimately make very large changes.
So sure, I think they also call this method laser
sublimation because you're trying to sublimate the surface of the
atmosphere with that concentrated um son. And then of course
their rockets. Rockets are always in the picture when you
(12:28):
discuss any space plan, and this is basically what you
think it would be, which is just strapping a rocket
to the asteroid and then um, you know, having that
propel the asteroid. So the problem with this one, and
their problems with all of these, as you guys have
already figured out, is that fuel could be a bit
(12:50):
of an issue. Yeah, because you've gotta get all the
way out there to the asteroid that could be what
like twenty years away, and then once you get the
rocket mounted on the sir, this, you've got a fuel
that rocket, so that's going to take fuel as well,
right right, right, So I don't know if that asteroid
would look lovely wearing a rocket. So let's move on
to our next approach, which is the grav tractor. Yeah,
(13:13):
and this one sounds very sci fi because it's it's
like tractor beam or something and uh, and it is
pretty pretty science fiction when you get down to it. Um.
And this one involves the principle that that in anything
out there has a it's gonna have a gravitational pull.
Whether you're talking about an asteroid or man made a spacecraft,
(13:34):
everything exerves a gravitational pool. So if we were to
get a big spaceship to go out there to this
asteroid and sort of hanging out around it or perhaps
and and then it just sort of begins to move,
and the asteroid moves with it because it is caught
up in the ship's gravitational pool. Right, So the tractors
(13:56):
up acting is kind of a cosmic tugboat, yeah, cosmic tugboat, Yeah,
pulling the astronaut off its fatal collision course. But again,
I mean, how how are we going to get this
giant cosmic tug about tug boat up into the space.
I mean, we don't have such a good track record
with getting spacecraft up there now. So if you can
imagine this giant tug boat being launched, it's it's kind
(14:18):
of an insane thought to get it out there. And
then and then how big would it have to be?
And then I've also read where people were concerned that
you'd have to have it would have to use thrusters
to keep from crashing into the asteroid that it's trying
to pull away, and that could counteract counter at that
could counter at the gravitational pull right, okay, all right,
(14:40):
and then of course we get to the robots. I
love the robots. Yeah, this one. If the last one
was science fictionally, this one's even more science fiction. Uh.
And it's just sending hungry robots to the asteroid, which
is actually that's it's an actual program. This is not
just a hair brained idea idea NASA's NASA has funded
the Modular Asteroid Deflection Mission ejector NODE or mad Men project.
(15:06):
It's really not that different from the rocket idea that
we discussed earlier. Like we said the rocket to deal
with the rockets. As you get a rocket there strap
into the planet, how are you going to fuel it? Right? Well,
in this case, the asteroid is it is the fuel.
The robots would chew up the surface and then they
would eject the material from the surface with a mass driver.
(15:30):
For in for any of you sci fi fans or
video game fishion nadas out there, this is a lot
like a rail gun, and we have an article on
this side about railguns if you want to learn more
about that. So, yeah, it's just using electromagnetism and these
coils to eject material at a really high speed, so
no fuel needed. The robots would be nuclear powered, and
(15:51):
they would create their thrust by by just chewing up
the asteroid and just spitting it. I think that's my favorite.
I'm not sure it could be the nut the nets
retty good, but the chewing robots would make a good movie.
And yeah, definitely, why better than armaged? I'm almost definitely sure.
So that's really all of the concrete ideas that scientists have.
(16:12):
And then of course there's always when all those fails panic,
So you'd want to build a bunker and um, you'd
want to brush up on your your road for your
rules and weapons. Definitely definitely. Oh and then here's my
favorite part. You definitely want to leave a note for
the next dominant species on Earth that evolves after said
(16:33):
nuclear winter impact. Yeah, and you want that to be
the giant squid. I think I think it might be
the cockroach, although I certainly hope it's not. Maybe they
can power sharing there, Yeah, If you want to check
out any of these articles on asteroids or asteroid mining
or what's going on in space, visit how staff works
dot com or visit our science blog, Science Stuff at
(16:57):
blogs dot hastaff works dot com. Hey for I listened
to the podcast and keep on fighting the good fight
against the asteroids. For more on this and thousands of
other topics, is it how stuff works dot com. Want
more how stuff works, check out our blogs on the
(17:19):
house stuff works dot com home page
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