Using Paintballs to Deflect Asteroids

Oct-28-12 A novel—and award winning—method of deflecting earth-endangering asteroids involves shooting the asteroid with paintballs to alter its course.

Conceived by Sung Wook Paek, a graduate student at MIT, the idea won the 2012 Move an Asteroid Technical Paper Competition. Using the potentially dangerous asteroid Apophis as a real-life example, Paek suggested sending spacecraft to Aphohis to fire two tons of paintballs at the asteroid’s surface. Not only would the impact cause Aphosis to shift slightly, but it would also coat the asteroid with a layer of paint powder, doubling its reflectivity and turning it into a solar sail, which would push it off its trajectory toward Earth.

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[GIZMAG.COM]
[MIT]

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