Is it possible to blow up an asteroid

An impact crater formed. However, the force was not enough to completely destroy the target — in sharp contrast to earlier results that did not account for the behaviour of the cracks. Instead, its large, dense, damaged core remained. The previous research had factored in a level of gravitational attraction between the asteroid fragments, and thus a degree of continued proximity between them, but had basically determined they would be to a degree separated from each other, and the debris thus reminiscent of a flying rubble pile.

The new research begs to differ. The large, still intact core is in itself a scarily big thing, and one that exerts enough gravitational force to bind many of the exploded fragments back to it. The finding might conceivably be good news for future space miners, who will know that valuable minerals blasted off a source asteroid can be retrieved from close to their original home. For astronomers and defence personnel on the look-out for big rocks heading towards Earth, however, there are few smiles to be had.

The researchers wanted to see how the fragments would interact with one another as well as how the gravity of the Sun and other planets would influence them. This can get complicated. Just finding the orbit of each piece can be tedious, and in addition to that, the entire cloud of fragments would stretch into something of a curve around the path of destruction the asteroid was riding before it met its end.

Sign Up For Free to View. Credit: NASA. Asteroids, the Universe, and Everything: Meet 42 space rocks. The asteroid Apophis isn't likely to hit Earth. Instead, over the hours that followed, the gravitational pull of its damaged core gathered together the rocky fragments around the core, resulting in an asteroid that was fragmented but not completely blown to pieces, the study authors reported.

While big asteroid impacts on Earth are exceptionally rare, computer models such as these can help scientists to strategize how we might defend ourselves against potentially devastating projectiles in the future, Kaliat Ramesh, a professor of mechanical engineering at Johns Hopkins' Whiting School of Engineering, said in the statement.

The findings will be published in the March 15 issue of the journal Icarus. Mindy Weisberger is a Live Science senior writer covering a general beat that includes climate change, paleontology, weird animal behavior, and space.

Mindy holds an M. The Spheral simulation that was used in the analysis. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The models that the researchers came up with looked at the impact of a 1-megaton-yield nuclear bomb hitting a meter foot wide asteroid about a fifth of the approximate size of Bennu. Five different asteroid orbits were analyzed, with detonations performed anywhere from a week to six months before impact.