
Will the world end in 2178?
The LRB Podcast
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Asteroid Paint Set - Is That a Good Idea?
If you find an asteroid far enough in advance, then making a subtle change for orbit is enough to make it miss the Earth by miles and miles and miles. But more recent calculations suggest the magnitude of the force is not such that that would make a big enough difference. And so one suggestion has been just to paint the asteroid's white - which sounds slightly odd, but there is pressure of sunlight. When I first heard about this dark mission, which went and hit an asteroid to see what happened, I thought it was a bit ridiculous because surely we know what's going to happen. We've played Snooko. The trouble is that these asteroids aren't solid objects. In particular, lots
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