Scientists prove X-rays can be used to deflect asteroids destined to collide with Earth

In June NASA conducted an internal tabletop exercise where it gave a team 14 years to deflect a large asteroid that has a 72% chance of hitting Earth. NASA found it doesn't have clear decision-making processes for such a situation, there is a lack of global coordination infrastructure in place with other space agencies, no asteroid impact disaster management plans in place, and ultimately, a limited readiness to quickly implement needed space missions.

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While just being a tabletop exercise and there luckily being no dangerous asteroid on the way, NASA underscored key holes in Earth's planetary defense system, holes that need to be filled with various systems and particularly responses to any potentially threatening asteroids. NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission was one such response that proved Earth is capable of changing the orbit, and therefore trajectory, of an asteroid. When the news was confirmed, Earth just unlocked a new planetary defense weapon.

Unfortunately, there are problems with this method of asteroid prevention, and they are the time it takes for a launch to take place and the costs behind it. Another method has been proposed by Nathan Moore, a postdoctoral researcher at New Mexico's Sandia National Laboratories, who proved on a small scale that a powerful X-ray pulse fired at the surface of two different replica asteroids can alter their speed.

The researchers used the megajoule-class plasma driver at the Sandia National Laboratories, which is nicknamed the "Z machine." The plasma is the largest pulsed power device in the world and is capable of firing 22 MJ of energy into an electric current pulse. The team used two materials for the test samples to simulate real-life asteroids: quartz, and fused silica.

The results were then plugged into a simulation where the device and samples were blown up to a larger scale. The researchers found with modern technology, engineers could create an X-ray pulse that could deflect an asteroid as wide as four 2.4 miles in diameter. The team proposes that more tests need to be carried out on various materials to determine the different plumes of vapor that emerge after the X-ray hits the surface an asteroid.

Ultimately, the team has proven that, theoretically, an asteroid's trajectory could be changed without a space mission. Depending on the size of the X-ray gun, this new planetary defense weapon would likely be much cheaper than a space mission and would be able to respond to any threat much faster.