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Planetary defense test deflected an asteroid but unleashed a boulder swarm (newsroom.ucla.edu)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Good news: smaller pieces burn up much easier in the atmosphere, so in the case of an actual asteroid deflection it's still a net gain.

Bad news: more potential navigation hazards.

I think that's a fair trade.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

Also, dispersing the boulders early enough means that most of them would miss Earth anyway.

I wouldn't really consider them navigation hazards, space is really big and boulders are really small. You'd have to aim a probe really precisely at one in order to hit it.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

We won't have to use this defense mechanism very often anyway. Fingers crossed.