
We Would Never Be Able to Blow Up an Asteroid to Save the Planet - k0t0n0
https://www.livescience.com/64910-exploding-asteroids-not-easy.html
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cthalupa
Title is misleading. Turning an asteroid into a cloud of debris with an intact
core would not be enough to save the earth because the debris would reform
around the core of the asteroid.

That's not the same as being unable to blow up an asteroid to save the planet
- you just need a more energy to also destroy the core, or followup to scatter
debris and overcome gravity, etc.

At the energy levels required it's probably easier to just move the asteroid
off of a collision course, so even an advanced enough civilization to blow up
an asteroid probably wouldn't. They shift its course, or trap it and mine it,
etc. But that isn't the same thing as never being able to do it. There's
nothing special about asteroids that make them impervious to explosions.

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anfilt
Simple more energy... If you hit it with enough energy the particles should
reach the escape velocity of the Asteroid's own gravity.

Now can we deliver that much energy? I don't know or would have to crunch the
numbers to know.

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abdelhamidem
Serious question: Would a reformed asteroid be more vulnerable once it enters
the atmosphere? I imagine it would scater much more easily, breaking up into
millions of smaller parts that would burn independently

