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Bebop3141 t1_iryru6j wrote

Reply to comment by threebillion6 in NASA says DART mission succeeded in altering asteroid's trajectory by Gari_305

You don’t want to blow up asteroids. Aside from the risk of reformation, there’s no guarantee that it will even break up solely into pieces small enough to not cause serious damage because it is hard to tell what asteroids are actually made of. Hence, the DART project, which tries to move the whole asteroid.

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olbettyboop t1_irys8jf wrote

You don’t try to blow it up. You use the force of the explosion to nudge it off course just like the DART program did. It’s on NASA’s interplanetary defense website.

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