There are several reasonable ways to protect Earth from any potential asteroid threats, but in this episode of Dead Planets Society, reason loses out to the idea of a huge orbiting shield
Protecting Earth from any huge asteroid that might come our way is complicated. If you break the space rock into pieces, that could create a hellish rain of shrapnel. However, smashing something into an asteroid without breaking it well before it nears Earth could change its trajectory, as could the “gravity tractor” technique of parking something massive right next to the asteroid. But those protective measures only work if we know about the asteroid far ahead of its projected landfall.
Researchers have been working on this problem for decades, but our hosts Leah Crane and Chelsea Whyte have some new ideas. In this episode of Dead Planets Society, they’re trying to protect Earth for a change, instead of wrecking it. Alive Planets Society, if you will. To help save the world, they’re joined by planetary astronomer and asteroid expert Andy Rivkin at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland. Instead of sending something out to the asteroid, they’re thinking about how to save Earth while staying relatively nearby.
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