MOSCOW, July 17 Only a missile with a nuclear warhead can save the Earth from a large asteroid if such an object moving towards our planet is detected a few days before the collision, said the senior researcher at the Institute of Applied Astronomy (IPA) RAS Nikolai Zheleznov.
“We won’t have time to reject such an object, and we will have to launch a missile with a nuclear warhead and destroy it. It’s better to fall a swarm of small debris than one large body. Half of the small debris can burn up in the atmosphere, and the other half can slap craters , but the Earth's atmosphere will remain,» Zheleznov said.
At the same time, he called it extremely unlikely a scenario in which such a dangerous asteroid could be detected no earlier than at the stage of its entry into the atmosphere. According to Zheleznov, observation of the sky and similar objects is ongoing, so «it is unlikely that it will come to this.»
At the same time, modern technologies make it possible to launch a rocket at least half an hour after detection, but only if it was stored in a state prepared for launch, the astronomer noted.
Read the full text of Nikolai Zheleznov's interview >>
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