Abstract Recent studies by the US National Research Council identify nuclear explosives as the only current technology able to deflect large asteroids (those exceeding 500m in diameter) or to mitigate impacts of smaller bodies when the warning time is short. Previous work predicts that either a standoff burst or a very low-yield surface burst is easily capable of deflecting a large (1km) asteroid without fragmentation. Alternatively, large near-surface or just sub-surface bursts can sufficiently disrupt and disperse smaller bodies (300m) to ensure that large fractions (in excess of 99.99%) miss the Earth entirely. Even for very short warning times (less than a month), more than 99.5% of a body′s mass can be deflected off of an Earth-bound trajectory. However, successfully deflecting a small body, while avoiding fragmentation, becomes a challenging problem when the required kinetic energy increment is a substantial fraction of the body′s potential. This paper addresses the challenge of preventing the production of substantial low-speed debris while deflecting small bodies with an impulsive method.

    Highlights ► Standoff nuclear bursts can defend against Earth-bound asteroids. ► We modeled the effects of standoff nuclear bursts on Apophis-sized asteroids. ► We examined the effects of porosity on the deflection of asteroids. ► Higher porosity lowered the risk of fragmentation when deflecting via standoff burst.


    Zugriff

    Zugriff prüfen

    Verfügbarkeit in meiner Bibliothek prüfen

    Bestellung bei Subito €


    Exportieren, teilen und zitieren



    Titel :

    Limits on the use of nuclear explosives for asteroid deflection


    Beteiligte:

    Erschienen in:

    Acta Astronautica ; 90 , 1 ; 103-111


    Erscheinungsdatum :

    2012-10-16


    Format / Umfang :

    9 pages




    Medientyp :

    Aufsatz (Zeitschrift)


    Format :

    Elektronische Ressource


    Sprache :

    Englisch





    Billiards Shot for Asteroid Deflection

    Salotti, Jean-Marc | AIAA | 2003


    Statistical multi-criteria evaluation of non-nuclear asteroid deflection methods

    Thiry, Nicolas / Vasile, Massimiliano | Elsevier | 2017


    Neutron Energy Effects on Asteroid Deflection

    Horan, Lansing S. / Holland, Darren E. / Syal, Megan Bruck et al. | IEEE | 2020


    Methods and Techniques for Asteroid Deflection

    Vasile, Massimiliano / Minisci, Edmondo | AIAA | 2016