在短时间内引爆小行星或许能拯救我们

本文探讨了利用核爆炸防御潜在小行星撞击地球威胁的可行性。研究人员通过模拟两种方案，分析了核爆手段在应对此类灾难性事件时的实际效能。

Readers of a certain age will remember a golden area of asteroid films, capstoned by two with very different endings. Deep Impact engrained the devastating consequences of letting a large piece of rock hit our planet, whereas Armageddon, though arguably the more kitschy of the two films, was an uplifting story about technical ingenuity and sacrifice. And now, the central crux of that movie’s storyline - essentially blasting an asteroid with a nuclear detonation - is taking center stage as our last line of defense against a potential Deep Impact scenario. A new paper from researchers at the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, and published in Space: Science & Technology, describes two potential scenarios examining how we might actually be able to nuke a space rock - and whether it would actually save us.