Deflector Selector says nuke asteroids

• Autores: Jacob Aron
• Localización: New scientist, ISSN 0262-4079, Nº. 3165, 2018, pág. 6
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • If an asteroid was set to hit Earth, humanity would have to scramble to conduct the world's riskiest experiment. An algorithm called the Deflector Selector says nukes would do the job about half the time. To be clear, Erika Nesvold, formerly at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington DC, and her team don't suggest people give a computer free reign over nuclear missiles. They are absolutely not advocating putting the algorithm in charge of asteroid defense, she says. The team tried their trained algorithm on three populations: hazardous near-Earth asteroids, comets and rubble piles -- loose collections of material, rather than solid objects. In each case, nuclear weapons could tackle about 50% of the objects.