Scientists successfully ‘nuke asteroid’ — in a lab mock-up

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By Jonathan O'Callaghan, Nature. 

Excerpt: Experiment shows that, in a worst-case scenario, humanity could use a nuclear explosion to save the planet from a deadly impact. A blast of X-rays from a nuclear explosion should be enough to save Earth from an incoming asteroid, according to the results of a first-of-its-kind experiment. The findings, published1 on 23 September in Nature Physics [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41567-024-02633-7], “showed some really amazing direct experimental evidence for how effective this technique can be”, says Dawn Graninger, a physicist at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. “It’s very impressive work.” 

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