How to stop an Asteroid from hitting Earth? - VastlyCurious

  So let's talk about Asteroid strikes. We all have seen movies where planets are wiped out by an Asteroid. Could that happen to us? We don't have the technology to colonize other planets, but do we really have the technology to prevent that from happening? 

Asteroids

    Asteroid hunting tends to be really tricky as most of the asteroids are in the dark and another reason is that the smaller the asteroid is, the less chance we have to spot it in the vastness of space. So we could potentially be missing many dangerous asteroids.

    In 2013, a meteor struck the earth at Chelyabinsk, Russia. It was 20 meters in diameter and it injured many people in the town. And guess what! The space exploration team didn't even spot the meteor in space. They became aware of the meteor only after its collision. People were so lucky that it was a 20-meter asteroid. Because of its smaller size, it didn't cause any major destruction as it got exploded before hitting the earth.

What if an asteroid hits the Earth?

    If a larger asteroid were to hit the earth, it would not only affect the area of impact, but the effect of the asteroid could be felt throughout the Earth. It would be equal to a nuclear holocaust. It would also release an enormous amount of dust that would block out the sun and the earth will go dark. Even if we survive all that, the crops could not be grown on Earth ever again. Sorry! No more food. Could this happen to us? We can't ignore the possibility of our extinction.

Large Asteroids

     But we do have one advantage on larger meteors, they can be easily spotted and we have time to prepare for impact. Do we have the technology to deviate the course of the meteor? 

Could we stop an asteroid?

    NASA is planning a mission to avoid dangerous meteors on the collision course with Earth and the mission is called DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test). It is basically to deviate the orbit of the asteroid by slamming one or two spacecraft at high velocity.

Protecting the Earth

    It may sound like a simple idea, but it requires precise calculation and we would also to spot the asteroid early for this plan to work. But nuking the meteor sounds like an easy option. Could we use nukes to destroy the asteroid?

Can we nuke the asteroid?

    Nuking the meteor might sound like a good idea, but nuking would only make it explode and we would be risking smaller fragments of the meteor crashing into the Earth. So it would turn into a double-edged sword for us. 

    But we could use nukes for another idea, instead of using the nukes to destroy the asteroid, we could try to use the nukes to change the course of the asteroid. We could try to nuke the surface of the asteroid and so that the asteroid is delayed a bit and would not hit Earth, as the planet would have moved while it got slow down. Poof! We can save the Earth, as long as we have plenty of time.

What is the probability of 'The Killer Asteroid'?

Extinction

    Remember the extinction of the dinosaurs, what if we face the same fate as the dinosaurs. Could we actually face the killer Asteroid that could wipe out the entire planet? But it looks like we don't have to worry about our extinction as the killer Asteroid might be only possible once in several million years. So the odds of a giant asteroid hitting us are pretty low. But they do happen! We can't ignore the possibility of this happening.

Conclusion

    Stopping a meteor strike is actually possible, we can't stop a Hurricane or a Tsunami now (unless we found a way to control the climate). But stopping a meteor strike is possible now if we can spot them early. So about the Asteroid strike should you be worried, probably not!