Preliminary Results for High-Fidelity Modeling and Simulation of Orbital Dispersion of Asteroids Disrupted by Nuclear Explosives

摘要

High-energy methods utilizing nuclear explosives can plausibly fragment and disperse a near-Earth object (NEO) rather than deflect it from its orbit. Orbital dispersion simulation and analysis results show that fragmenting and dispersing a hazardous NEO could lower the total mass impacting the Earth. This could be beneficial in situations where some impacting mass is inevitable, or where the resulting fragments will be small enough to burn up in Earth's atmosphere. Recent hydrodynamic models of an asteroid fragmented and dispersed by nuclear subsurface explosions were used as input conditions for orbital prediction. Computational challenges are discussed, and a comparison of steadily more realistic models is presented. Upgrades made to previous models are discussed, as well as preliminary results for reentry modeling and impact location prediction. Critical parameters including burst-to-impact time and explosive yield are examined, with guidelines for determining in which situations a disruption (i.e., fragmentation and dispersion) of an NEO is desired.