Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Deflecting Asteroids with Paint

Posted by timothy on from the really-big-sprayer dept.

schnippy writes: "Researchers at the University of Arizona have calculated that small earth-crossing asteroids can be deflected by "coating them with a layer of white paint or dust." This finding won't be of much help against the larger doomsday asteroids (like the recently discovered 1950 DA) but it will help deflate military proposals to use nuclear weapons to deflect potentially hazardous asteroids."

3 of 51 comments (clear)

  1. Asteroids, I used to play that game... by gnovos · · Score: 3, Funny

    Why does everyone whine about nuking asteroids? Why NOT nuke them? Even the really big ones? Even the ones that people say are "the size of Texas"? And I don't mean the "try one nuke and give up" that they do in the movies right before sending the poorly trained oil rig workers. I mean rain down thousands, if not tens or hundreds of thousands, of 150 megaton nukes. Turn that whole nasty blob of metal and rock into white hot hell-fire plasma. Not only would it be fun and pretty, but we'd also get to empty out all the really nasty big mother nukes that have been sitting around and collecting dust forever.

    --
    "Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
    1. Re:Asteroids, I used to play that game... by Mr.Intel · · Score: 3, Funny

      Put the abacus and crack pipe down. Step away from the crack pipe... You have *way* too much freaking time on your hands dude.

      --
      ASCII tastes bad dude.
      Binary it is then.
  2. Armaggeddon 2 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    So in Armaggeddon 2, instead of oil rig workers, they'll send... house painters?