Robot to Deflect Asteroids w/Spray Paint

Posted 31 Dec 2005 at 16:04 UTC by The Swirling Brain

What do you do when a big ole asteroid is found headed straight toward earth? Blow it up? Naw, instead you send little space robots to deflect those asteroids with spray paint! If you blow up an asteroid, you may have a bigger disaster area with lots of little pieces hitting the earth! However, if one side of an asteroid is painted, the color can cause either heating up or cooling down on that side which may cause the asteroid to change course. Dr Gianmarco Radice and a team of Glasgow University students will be conducting a £300,000 three-year study into asteroids backed by the Government's Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. They say the big threat currently is a 390-metre wide asteroid called Apophis that NASA says could hit earth April 13, 2036 destroying thousands of miles.