How to Defend Earth From Asteroids

The Earth sits in a cosmic shooting gallery.

Millions of asteroids orbit the Sun, some on paths that cross that of Earth. These range in size from grains of sand -- which create beautiful but harmless shooting stars when they burn up in our atmosphere -- to rocks the size of football stadia and even cities themselves. One such asteroid, 10 kilometers across, impacted the Earth 65 million years ago, and the resulting devastation wiped out the dinosaurs essentially overnight.

We know there are no rocks that big headed our way anytime soon, at least not for centuries. But it only takes one asteroid, 100 or so meters across, impacting the Earth to explode with the force of a dozen nuclear weapons. This is something we might wish to avoid!

So what do we do?

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