INCOMING ASTEROIDS MIGHT BE HARDER TO DESTROY THAN WE THOUGHT

Armageddon 2

It is a good thing that an asteroid is not currently moving towards the Earth - because to destroy it, the path that is our current calculation can be closed.

"We believed that the larger the object, the easier it would be to break, as there is more chance of flaws in larger objects," Charles El Meir, was involved in the study on an asteroid collision behind a new Johns Hopkins University. A press release. "However, our findings show that the asteroids are stronger than our thinking ability and require more energy to be completely disintegrated."

Crunched Numbers

The researchers expanded how they reached that conclusion in a study set for publication in the March issue of Icarus magazine.

They started by creating a new computer model to simulate, if one asteroid (.6 mile) about 25 kilometers (15.5 miles) in diameter at an asteroid diameter, what would happen at the speed of five kilometers per second. 3.1 miles per second).

Because the Johns Hopkins team's model had taken into consideration procedures more sophisticated than previous simulations, it was able to provide that researchers believe that there is a more accurate picture of what will happen during this type of confrontation: Instead of breaking completely, as expected. The previous model, the larger asteroid will only partially burst.

Major Threat

According to the researcher K.T. Ramesh, the team's study shows what we have to do to destroy an asteroid - it needs to be reconsidered - before we actually have to destroy one.

Ramesh said, "We are very impressed with small asteroids, as happened in Chelyabinsk a few years ago." "It is only a matter of time when these questions define our response to the greatest danger from being academic. We should have a good idea about what we should do - and such scientific efforts are important to help us make decisions. "