Uh there's nothing more exciting than science you get all the fun of
sitting still being quiet writing down numbers paying attention science has it all
earlier this year a kilometer wide asteroid came hurtling towards the earth at more than 34 000
miles per hour and passing within the moon's orbit luckily we were never in any real danger
the object nicknamed pz39 has been on nasa's radar both metaphorically and literally since way back
in 2002 it's just one of the more than 20 000 near-earth asteroids they monitor since there
aren't many forces acting on objects in space asteroids are as close as you can get to those
with no friction or air resistance high school physics problems and so we can usually track
these near-earth asteroid orbits fairly accurately years or even decades in advance but here's an
interesting question what if back in 2002 nasa realized pz-39 was on a direct collision course
with earth with more than a decade to prepare how would nasa try to stop a rogue asteroid
if you love watching our videos and learning new things be sure to check out our discord link in
the description below and let's jump in in the movies you often see the u.s launching a nuclear
bomb at an incoming asteroid usually to blow it to bits the one problem with that if you blow it to
bits some of those bits may still be hurtling in our direction but don't worry nasa has a few more
sophisticated ideas up their sleeves instead of hitting the asteroid with something as big as a
nuke nasa likes the idea of something a bit more precise enter nasa's kinetic impactor which would
deflect an incoming asteroid by smacking into him like pushing someone on skates the idea is to hit
the asteroid just barely hard enough to nudge it off course but not hard enough to fracture it
if we detect the asteroid 20 years in advance like we did with pz slowing the asterisk by only
one mile an hour or 1.6 kilometers an hour would be enough to divert it by more than 150 000 miles
up next coming straight out of a cartoon what if we shot it with a net
when nasa detects an asteroid it's not like they have a 4k image of it or resolution from millions
of miles away might literally just be a blip on a screen nasa expects that many asteroids
are really clusters of asteroids that were pulled together by the weak gravitational force and since
the asteroids don't have enough gravitational force to actually merge into one object they
could literally just be two asteroids holding hands drifting through space together so if we
tried a kinetic bombardment on what we thought was one asteroid we might divert one of the smaller
asteroids while keeping the rest hurtling towards us there's solution to get around this shoot a net
first ask questions later nasa scientists think that a carbon fiber mesh weighing somewhere in
the neighborhood of 550 pounds or 250 kilograms could be enough to change an asteroid's incoming
course but if the asteroids are too big the logistics of using a net just don't work out
if you're interested in knowing just how large these asteroids can get check out this video on
the largest things in the universe after this one but we don't have to touch an asteroid in order to
deflect it if we could put a satellite in orbit around the asteroid we would have a few options
if the satellite was fitted with lasers it could heat a small portion of the asteroid's surface
vaporizing it as the material ejects from the asteroid it would provide just enough thrust
to alter the asteroid's path even without the laser if the asteroid was small enough
the satellite's gravitational pull alone could be enough to pull the asteroid off
course the last and probably weirdest idea we'll discuss today is to eat the asteroid
the nasa-funded modular asteroid deflection mission ejector node project aka madman involves
sending nuclear-powered robots to a threatening asteroid where they'd land and begin mining
or chewing into the surface of the rock they would then inject these fragments into space
with the help of electromagnets and as newton told us every action has an equal and opposite reaction
so by ejecting small pieces of the asteroid you could provide enough force to nudge it off course
so rest assured while we're watching youtube and clicking that like button nasa is hard at
work trying to keep us from going the way of the dinosaurs if you like the video be sure to leave
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as always have a great day and remember there is always more to learn