Scientists use green laser pointer pulses to simulate the shock wave from a nuclear bomb explosion. In using the laser to destroy the meteorite model, the researchers measured the asteroid’s heat and pressure distribution and changes. Their experimental results are similar to those predicted by computer simulations. Happily, computer simulations also show that radioactive rock fragments produced after the asteroid explosion will be safe for our planet.
But researchers have found that the force per unit mass required to completely destroy the asteroid model is almost twice the force required to destroy the Chelyabinsk meteorite. This experiment also confirmed that when destroying the asteroid model, a series of small explosions is more effective than a single large explosion. Data show that destroying a 600-foot (about 182-meter) non-metallic asteroid requires a 3 million-ton bomb.
The nuclear weapons archive also shows that in 1952, the United States test-exploded the world’s first thermonuclear weapon, the hydrogen bomb, at Eniwetok Atoll, at the northwestern tip of the Marshall Islands in the Western Pacific. Its strength is 10.4 megatons. According to the director of the Institute for Defense of Space Threat Research, Jyashatov, Russia currently does not have the ability to intercept these “green alien pointers”.