Asteroids are much harder to blow up in order to save Earth than we had thought, scientists warn

It will be much harder than we have realised to blow up an asteroid and save the planet, scientists have warned. Experts have repeatedly warned that it is a question of when not if the Earth will be hit by the arrival of a potentially disastrous asteroid. But films have suggested a simple if high-tech response: launching heroes into space to blow it up before it ever gets here. In real life, however, those asteroids could be far more difficult to destroy than we knew. That is according to a new study from scientists at Johns Hopkins, who simulated the ways that an asteroid collision might happen and how such a space rock would fracture.