Humanity could use a nuclear bomb to deflect a massive, life-threatening asteroid hurtling towards Earth in the future, according to scientists who tested the theory in the laboratory by blasting X-rays at a marble-sized “mock asteroid”.
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The biggest real-life test of our planetary defences was carried out in 2022, when Nasa’s fridge-sized Dart spacecraft smashed into a 160-metre (525-feet) wide asteroid, successfully knocking it well off course.
But for bigger asteroids, merely crashing spaceships into them will probably not do the trick.
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When the roughly 10-kilometre wide Chicxulub asteroid struck the Yucatan peninsula around 66 million years ago, it is believed to have plunged Earth into darkness, sent kilometres-high tsunamis rippling around the globe and killed three quarters of all life – including wiping out the dinosaurs.
We humans are hoping to avoid a similar fate.