<\/p>\n But Earth has been smacked by space rocks in the past, with even the moderate-sized Chelyabinsk<\/a> incident of 2013 causing reported property damage near its blast site in Russia. And as the researchers of a new paper point out, asteroids tens of meters in size and larger have been tracked flying safely<\/a>, but closely, by Earth.<\/p>\n Assuming a theoretical space rock is on an imminent collision course and exceeds about 330 feet (100 meters) in size, simply blasting it (or even guiding it away) may not be a viable option, the researchers said in a peer-reviewed study<\/a> in the journal Space: Science and Technology.<\/p>\n “Traditional kinetic impact, or long\u2011term force deflection methods, offer limited energy and cannot achieve effective deflection within short timeframes,” the researchers said in a press release, adding they found few comprehensive analyses of how to do so. (NASA<\/a> did successfully deflect an asteroid moonlet’s orbit with the DART spacecraft<\/a> in 2022, for example, but that was a unique test case in space.)<\/p>\n You may like<\/p>\n So the team, led by Xiaowei Wang from the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, instead proposed using one of two “defense modes” for large incoming asteroids.<\/p>\n The first mode is a more simple impact detonation \u2014 simply put, smacking the asteroid’s surface to create a shallow crater, in which a nuclear device is exploded. The other mode is a “pre-excavation detonation”, or using a penetration device to create a deeper crater before exploding a nuclear warhead to “achieve deep detonation” in the interior of the asteroid.<\/p>\n The researchers’ modeling included the energy of a launch vehicle, the velocity of the impact spacecraft, and changes to the velocity of the asteroid, in each of these two modes. The two modes were also tested against a “virtual threat asteroid database” assuming warning times of anywhere between one year and 20 years.<\/p>\n All in all, assuming enough time is available, it seems the deep-crater method wins out. “The flyby pre-excavation detonation mode, due to its ability to autonomously select the cratering location and achieve deep detonation, offers stronger energy coupling,” the researchers wrote in the press release.<\/p>\n Such an impact could “destroy” asteroids that are roughly 330 feet (100 meters) or of that range, and push away asteroids of a size reaching about 0.6 miles (1 km) by imparting a velocity change of roughly 1 m\/s in about 60 days.<\/p>\n \n In 2022, NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission slammed into the asteroid Dimorphos, which orbits a larger asteroid named Didymos, and changed the binary system’s orbit around the sun. (Image credit: NASA\/Johns Hopkins APL\/Steve Gribben)<\/p>\n \n (Image credit: NASA\/Johns Hopkins APL\/Steve Gribben)<\/p>\n While a shallow-crater mission could be launched more quickly, the researchers added, “the impact location is random, energy coupling is weak, and requirements for the nuclear device’s impact resistance and detonation timing are extremely stringent.”<\/p>\n Real-world missions would also have to take into account the composition of an asteroid (as a pile of rubble would likely require a different approach than a solid rock), whether the pathways of any pieces generated by an impact pose a threat, and how to safely get the nuclear warhead into space in the first place, among many other technical issues. The researchers did not raise these considerations in the press release.<\/p>\n They did, however, provide “recommended solutions” for when to use each of the two options. The shallow impact might be preferable “for emergency defense” on a huge asteroid if there is an extremely short warning time, because that mission is less complex. Otherwise, the “deep impact<\/a>” would be the way to go.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"How do you stop a large, threatening asteroid on its way to Earth? A new Chinese paper, investigating…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":786230,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[49,48,66,306],"class_list":["post-786229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=786229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786229\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/786230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=786229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=786229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=786229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Space\"](\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/media\/img\/spc-logo-w.svg\"){kind=logo}
<\/p>\n![\"a](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/HwAxRYtVkr3nCc8suEpqaT.jpeg\")
\n<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/BWv3wQuKxGNHwu8NkqxjFV.jpg\")
\n<\/p>\n