Russians to launch A bomb
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what could go wrong? knock the asteroid's course towards earth or break up the astroid into lots of chunks, some of which may do who knows what to the earth.
the asteroid is best left alone if it's a miss or a skimmer, only take action when it's going to be a dead strike.
My question relates to the subject line of your post. Did you read the news article you posted? I didn't see ANYTHING in there suggesting that they were considering the use of a nuclear weapon, and I find this post to be sensationalism, much like the major networks use, particularly one who's version of news has become comical.
I really think that the general public, and a large percentage of scientists are mis-informed about just what a nuclear explosion would do out in space. Most of the damage we see in the video of bomb tests is caused by air, heated by the fission or fusion. Out in space, there is no atmosphere to heat up, and nobody really has much of an idea of what would happen if a nuclear bomb would explode out there, since it's never been tried. I have serious doubts that exploding a nuclear bomb "near" an object like an asteroid would blow it up, as we would see in the movies. Yes, if they could get the bomb to explode ON the surface of the asteroid, I think it would likely do a lot of damage, but even then, I don't think the damage would be quite what people would imagine. And getting a bomb to explode on the surface isn't going to be easy, because the chances are that if they allow it to hit the surface, it could destroy the bomb before it explodes. I think that most nuclear bombs are designed to explode before they reach the ground, and the damage is caused by the blast of hot air plasma.
Anyway, when I read the subject line, I went to the URL because I couldn't believe that the Russians really thought that blowing the thing up was a reasonable option or possibility. On reading the URL, I see no mention of blowing it up, and no suggestion that they were considering a nuclear bomb.
So I'm a bit sorry that I fell for the misleading subject line.
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