Killing Killer Asteroids with Nuclear Explosives
Los Alamos National Laboratory sent this bulletin at 08/13/2014 02:17 PM MDT
Killing Killer Asteroids with Nuclear Explosives
We’ve all see Armageddon, but just how real is the threat to humanity from asteroids or other near-Earth objects (NEOs)? According to scientists, it’s very real. So real, in fact, that the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space recently created a special action team dedicated to gathering and analyzing data on NEOs and the danger they pose to our planet.
Any NEO greater than a half-mile in diameter can become a deadly threat, and the likelihood is very high that a killer asteroid will eventually find itself on a collision course with Earth. When that day comes, we will need to have a plan. With the help of Los Alamos’ Cielo supercomputer – a 1.35 petaflop/s machine built by Cray – Los Alamos astrophysicist Robert Weaver is working on developing one option: using a nuclear explosive to stop a killer asteroid in its tracks.
Click here <http://bit.ly/1stspOO> to watch a video about using Cielo to create a model of the effect of a one-megaton nuclear energy source on the type of asteroid that might some day threaten Earth.
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