What is the best way to blow up a meteor?

Question

No uses of nuclear bombs or A-bombs. Blow up in a very high tech way.

Answer 1

If you require an explosion and rule out atomic weapons then you have to use megatons of TNT.

However, that is probably the WORST way to try and get an asteroid or comet to NOT hit the earth.

If you want to destroy it then simply build a Mylar mirror and position it so the asteroid is at its focal point. The heat from the sun will cook it cheaply and fairly quickly. It would be better though to hit an edge and let it use the out gas from the heat to push it out of a collision orbit.

You could even paint one side white and let the difference in reflection provide a different force on it that would change its orbit.

One astronaut favors just putting a spacecraft next to it and holding it there. The gravity from the spacecraft would be enough to give it a gentle nudge out of a collision orbit.

You could play astronomical pool and shoot some high energy substance at it. Like orbit a mass driver and in effect shoot it with a machine gun to blow it into another orbit. For that matter you could send another asteroid in its direction, but if you missed it wouldn't be very good.

A solar sail would be a Mylar film attached to the asteroid that would use the solar wind (energy and particles from the sun) to divert the asteroid.

The key here is time. The longer you have to change its orbit the more subtle you can be, the less force you need, and the easier it is to do. But, if you let a huge one get too close then blowing it up with a nuclear bomb will simply spread the same disaster over the planet; just give it a wider impact zone. The solutions presented in the movies were a one in million. The real solution isn't so dramatic.

Answer 2

Sending a device out to the meteor that would latch itself on by means of drilling, or , harpooning. This would change it's course through the use of some kind of counter-weight that would then be deployed from either an attached component, or from an internal source.

I've thought that some kind of liquid substance could be released through a tube into a bag that would swell up and harden over a very brief period of time, this would act as the count-weight, and thereby bring the meteor off course.

Answer 3

A meteor is the visible trail of a small particle entering the Earth's atmosphere from outer space and glowing from its heat. Most meteors are caused by meteroids which are smaller tha a pea, and they only last a second or two. So I don't see how you could possibly blow one up, or want to. Now and asteroid or a comet is another matter, but that's not what you asked!

Answer 4

Every mineral has a certain hardness to it. If you launch something much "harder," then the softer mineral will crack, even if the collision is little more than a tap.

For example, if the meteor was made mostly of glass, then launching a comparatively sized piece of ceramic would shatter the thing into pieces.

If it was made of some other kind of rock, I would guess that we could shatter it with a tremendous diamond, or maybe something diamond encrusted. That would shatter the meteor without a nuance of explosives.

Answer 5

It really depends on how big the meteor is. The best way to bust through anything hard such as armour or in this can a large rock, we can simply lunch a succession of high explosive rockets at it. But make sure to hit the same spot in rapid succession. This will propagate fractures throughout the rock, causing it to break up.

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Answer 6

we've located a great style of the earth crossing asteroids bigger than one million km in diameter, and none of them symbolize conceivable till now 2800 advert. As somebody has already stated, the faster we detect a ability impression, the greater straightforward it's going to be to deflect. an quite small deflection appearing over an quite long term will reason the asteroid to miss the earth as efficiently as a lots bigger deflection over a shorter time. the objective in all cases is to deflect the object, fairly than to "blow it up." A nuclear weapon detonated in area produces in particular difficult X-rays, which might warmth the exterior of the object, vaporizing countless the exterior and coming up a small volume of thrust. If it is carried out early sufficient, the thrust could desire to be sufficient to deflect its orbit and reason it to miss. lower back, as others have stated, looking all probably threatening products is lots greater significant than engaged on deflection strategies today.

Answer 7

We wouldn't want to. We'd just end up with a lot of little small (or possibly nuclear) pieces hitting us instead of a big one. It's much better - and even easier - to simply knock it off course. If you see it early enough, a very small collision from a rocket or something would knock it far off-course by the time it came near Earth and it would miss us entirely. Which is why we have a lot of telescopes searching for near-Earth objects.

Answer 8

If its a meteor it would be too late to try.

Answer 9

take a deep breath and tie a knot in the nozzle

Answer 10

Use a laser.

Doug