We all remember the movie "Armageddon" with Bruce Willis in the title role, where a group of people heroically saved the Earth from destruction by destroying a meteorite that threatens it. Since then (and even before that), many have been thinking: "What if there really is such a threat?" And in order to simulate a similar situation, a group of Russian scientists created a miniature asteroid and destroyed it using available terrestrial technologies.
Behind the study is a group of Russian scientists from Rosatom and their colleagues from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT). For their experiments, the research group has developed a technology for manufacturing an asteroid model. It was made based on the known composition of rocky meteorites. The properties of the asteroid model took into account its chemical composition, density, porosity and structural rigidity. As a weapon against asteroids, 3 laser devices were used: "Iskra-5", "Luch" and "Saturn". Their laser beam was modified in accordance with the dimensions, but in the course of the experiments it was corrected to the power specified for this model, and then directed to a replica of the asteroid fixed in a vacuum chamber. During the experiments, the laser hit the asteroids in a time not exceeding 30 nanoseconds.
But the scientists did not stop there: to assess the success of the destruction, they used data obtained after the fall of the Chelyabinsk meteorite. So, after entering the atmosphere, it broke into small particles that did not cause much damage. The scale of the destroyed particles of the experimental asteroid did not exceed the size of the particles of the "Chelyabinsk fellow".
“If a 200-meter asteroid is broken into pieces with a diameter of 10 times and a mass of 1000 times less than the asteroid itself, the resulting fragments will not pose a danger. However, this conclusion is valid only for a 200-meter asteroid entering the atmosphere. But we, nevertheless, managed to prove that a short laser pulse directed at an asteroid causes destructive effects similar to a nuclear explosion on the cosmic body itself."
Vladimir Kuznetsov
