Jesse Rogerson

Don't wanna fall asleep.

I gotta say, it's not the first time I've sung Don't Wanna Miss a Thing by Aerosmith when we're talking about asteroids hitting the Earth.

But there is a new research paper.

Scientists have looked into what might happen if there's an asteroid coming for us and we nuke it.

And in the past, I've reported that that would be a bad thing.

It would blow up the asteroid into pieces.

It would destroy Earth anyway.

But a new simulation says, hmm, might be a good idea.

I'm here with Jesse Rogerson, an astrophysicist and professor to talk... What was that movie called?

I forget now.

Armageddon?

Armageddon!

Thank you.

Okay, so we can Armageddon an asteroid is what you're saying.

So the rock goes through this high energy, you know, explosion and then vaporizes rather than breaks up.

I think if we get to the next hundred years, humanity, without destroying ourselves, I think we may have the tech to avert an extinction-level impact event.

Like, we're kind of going in the right direction with this stuff.

Obviously, if we detect an asteroid tomorrow that's going to hit us in a week, we'll probably be toast.

But it seems like humanity wants to get there, and it seems like it may be possible.

Let's talk nuclear stuff more, but continue the conversation onto a new science news story.