Abstract Diverting hazardous small bodies on impact trajectories with the Earth can in some circumstances be impossible without risking disrupting them. Disruption is a much more difficult planetary defense scenario to assess, being linked both to the response of the body to shock loading and the much more complicated gravitational dynamics of the fragments in the solar system relative to pure deflection scenarios. In this work we present a new simulation suite built on -body gravitational methods that solves fragment orbits in the full gravitational system without recourse to more approximate methods. We assess the accuracy of our simulations and the simplifying assumptions we adopt to make the system tractable, and then discuss in more detail several specific, plausible planetary defense scenarios based on real close encounters. We find that disruption can be a very effective planetary defense strategy even for very late (sub-year) interventions, and should be considered an effective backup strategy should preferred methods, which require long warning times, fail.
Highlights We present a fiducial simulation of the nuclear disruption of a small body. We simulate the orbits of the fragments for several plausible impact scenarios. We find that nuclear disruption is an effective strategy for late-time scenarios. Disruption can reduce the impacting mass to ¡1% by one month before impact.
Late-time small body disruptions for planetary defense
Acta Astronautica ; 188 ; 367-386
2021-07-22
20 pages
Article (Journal)
Electronic Resource
English
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