Thursday, November 5, 2026

Asteroids' Oddball Shapes Make Deflecting Them Challenging

This artist's illustration shows NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test spacecraft approaching its target, Dimorphos. If we need to deflect an incoming asteroid on short notice, an impactor like DART won't do the job. We may need to redirect the dangerous rock with an x-ray pulse from a carefully detonated nuclear weapon. But the part of the surface we direct the x-ray pulse at matters a lot. Image Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Steve Gribben

In a pinch, we could use a stand-off nuclear blast to redirect a dangerous asteroid on short notice. There's no atmospheric shock wave in space, but the x-ray pulse could still deflect the space rock. But asteroids aren't round and uniform, so their weird shapes make it difficult.



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