Nearly 25 years have passed since Bruce Willis, in his role as the fictitious Harry Stamper in the popular film Armageddon, rescued Earth from an asteroid that was headed straight for the globe.
He accomplished this in classic Hollywood style by setting off a nuclear bomb that had been inserted into the asteroid, stopping what experts refer to as a “mass extinction event.” Everyone on the planet exclaimed (at least in the film). It looks like everyone on the planet can now rejoice.
Scientists from Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico, US, claim to have replicated a nuclear X-ray pulse focused into an asteroid’s side in order to alter the asteroid’s trajectory and prevent a collision with Earth in a paper published in Nature Physics.
How was the experiment conducted? The X-ray pulses were produced by a Z machine in a recent experiment carried out at Sandia National Laboratories. This is one of the most potent radiation generators in the world, capable of producing both X-rays and magnetic fields.
An powerful electrical burst is directed at a pocket of argon gas in order to produce the X-ray pulse. This causes the argon gas to implode and transform into plasma. The target is struck by a strong X-ray burst that is released by the plasma, simulating a nuclear explosion in space.
Scientists used an X-ray pulse inside a vacuum to simulate a nuclear explosion on the surface of an asteroid-like rock in space-like conditions. The pulse created a vapour plume which pushed the rock away.“The vaporised material shoots off one side, pushing the asteroid in the opposite direction,” Dr Nathan Moore, the lead author of the new study, said in a press statement