Am I Seeing Things?

[Strong Eagle]

Image from an article discussing how a nuclear weapon might be used to deflect a large asteroid heading for earth.

[nakatago]

Where do I begin?

[Sporkin]

I've always wondered about this, a space detonation would lack the shockwave front and make it more of a direct radiation weapon once the initial implosion is done.

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[x9200]

If you would detonate close to the surface surely it will push the object away. Enough debris with high kinetic energy. Besides, elementary particles also have mass and the surface of the object will likely evaporate with higher volume of the gases than the initial volume of solids.

[Sporkin]

I shudder to think of the odds of playing this cosmic 8 ball, with a spit-wad against a hypersonic ice-cube( in relative sense). In theory a small nudge in the force vector at large enough distances should be sufficient to avoid a real hit, if the trajectory prediction is accurate, who is to say the nudge actually changes it from near miss to actual hit. This is one for the eggheads to figure out.

If you would detonate close to the surface surely it will push the object away. Enough debris with high kinetic energy. Besides, elementary particles also have mass and the surface of the object will likely evaporate with higher volume of the gases than the initial volume of solids.

[nakatago]

You basically want a powerful explosion that can impart enough force* to nudge the asteroid away but not too much force** that we end up with so smaller but still deadly projectiles (because it's even harder to blow the thing to smithereens that will burn upon entry). The idea of detonating a nuke nearby also raise the question: how far/near should the explosion be?

The idea is sound but the devil is in the details.

* Newton's third law
** Force vs impact

And then there's this guy:

[MikeJones]

To answer what I think (or hope) was actually SE's question, no you are not seeing things, it really does look like an enormous fiery penis.

Mike

[x9200]

[sundaymorningstaple]

Mike, your like the little boy who stated the obvious in the story "The emperor's new clothes".

[brunoeazzurra]

Hot salty nuts! hahaha!

Sundaymorning!(see that you've lost your snowman pic) Nakatago! nice to see you guys alive after nearly 7 years. Gosh.