Speaker
Description
This study presents a groundbreaking experiment that explores the deflection of Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) using x-rays generated from a stand-off nuclear explosion for deflecting the largest NEOs or for short impact warning times. Conducted at the Z Machine at Sandia National Laboratories, our innovative approach utilized an intense x-ray burst produced by an argon plasma, targeting miniature mock asteroids made of silica (see N.W. Moore, M. Mesh, J. J. Sanchez, et al., Simulation of asteroid deflection with a megajoule-class X-ray pulse, Nat. Phys. (2024), https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-024-02633-7). In this experiment, we employed “x-ray scissors” to release the targets into free space nearly instantaneously. This novel technique allowed the mock asteroids to move freely in a vacuum, closely mimicking the conditions that NEOs would experience in space. We utilized laser interferometry to accurately track the motion of the mock asteroids, which achieved speeds of ~70 m/s. Scaling our findings, which align with numerical simulations, provides experimental confirmation for the potential to deflect kilometer-scale asteroids using stand-off x-ray bursts. This new experimental capability paves the way for evaluating the effectiveness of nuclear deflection of various asteroid materials in a controlled laboratory environment, i.e., without space flight. We detail the experimental setup and results, including analysis showing that allowing the mock silica asteroids to move freely enhances momentum coupling to the target by ~30-50%, representing a significant advancement in our understanding of asteroid deflection techniques.
Sandia National Laboratories is a multimission laboratory managed and operated by National Technology and Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC., a wholly owned subsidiary of Honeywell International, Inc., for the U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-NA-0003525.