Sandia National Laboratories researchers found a faster, more detailed way to model how X-rays from a nuclear blast near an asteroid could push it off course.
What’s new
- They combined two Sandia codes: ALEGRA, which models surface vaporization, and SPARTA, which handles the thin gas that expands afterward
- Older models often treated asteroids as spheres to keep run times down. Real ones aren’t round
- Physicist Nathan Moore: “We expected aim to matter … What surprised us was how much.”
My take
Faster sims mean more scenarios before we ever need one. Pair this with what Hera is learning at Dimorphos and planetary defense keeps getting more real.
God Bless, and May the Source Be with You!
