MIT Team Claims to Have Found The Best Way to Deflect Scary Earth-Bound Asteroids
MIT Team Claims to Have Found The Best Way to Deflect Scary Earth-Bound Asteroids One can only hope that never ( again ) will a substantially-sized asteroid come barrelling towards Earth. But if it should happen, we're now better prepared for it: MIT scientists have come up with a decision map for figuring out the best response in the event of an incoming asteroid crisis. The decision map weighs up factors like an asteroid's mass and momentum, and then predicts the most effective way of avoiding a collision if it looks like the object will hit Earth's gravitational keyhole – that window of space where a hit would be guaranteed. At the end of the decision map are three choices: steering the asteroid away with a projectile ; sending a scout up to take more measurements; or sending two scouts up to take more measurements and maybe shift the path of the asteroid slightly (making the projectile option easier further down the line). "People have mostly co...