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UK funds research into deflecting dangerous asteroids

British scientists are set to go where only Bruce Willis has gone before: chasing after asteroids on a collision course with Earth.

In a three-year ?300,000 (US$529,600) study funded by the UK government-backed Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, engineers will use computer simulations to work out the feasibility of changing the direction of asteroids.

"It's clear from geological records that the Earth has been impacted in the past by large objects," Colin McInnes of Strathclyde University said. Although none of the space objects currently tracked by NASA are heading for Earth, McInnes added that preparing for a potential catastrophe was a valid concern.

"You have to place it in context -- it's a small risk but with a high consequence," he said.

The project will look at a range of methods proposed by scientists over the years, from giant mirrors floating in space which could vaporize parts of an asteroid to methods that rely more on brute force, such as smashing a rocket into the asteroid to deflect it.

"The deflection methods fall mainly in two categories, kinetic methods and low-thrust methods," Gianmarco Radice of Glasgow University said.

"Kinetic methods are those which provide an instantaneous change of properties within the asteroid.

Sending a nuclear warhead or some sort of exploding device against the asteroid ... to create shock wave, for example. Low-thrust methods range from painting the surface of the asteroid with reflective or absorbing paint so that the properties of the surface are changed by attracting more or less light, thus heating or cooling the surface and changing the physical properties of the asteroid," Radice said.

Whatever method is used, it would only change the path of the asteroid by minute amounts.

"You can make very small adjustments to their orbits to create large changes in their orbits in the future," McInnes said.

The exact methods used would have to vary depending on the type of asteroid being targeted.
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