01x01 - Asteroid Apocalypse

[bunniefuu]

Yeah, smells like
mass extinction.

So, massive asteroid
is bearing down to the Earth.

We are talking about
millions of lives.

People could die.
This is the real thing.

We are gonna try to
save the Earth here.

We all seen asteroids
destroy in Hollywood movies.

But would that actually work?

We're gonna put it to
the test. I wanna model

an asteroid impact. I need
a big expl*si*n.

It helps to know what
this thing is made of.

We need to find the
an answer, now.

Because, this may
mean the difference

between life on Earth

and no life at all.

The Universe is a
dangerous place.

Threats can coming
from any direction.

But pop culture is play
fast and useful defense.

In quiet often, the things
we think we know

are all wrong and when you
deal with the Universe,

the ignorance can be deadly.
That's where I come in.

I'm Phil Plait. I'm
astronomer on the mission.

My job is the debunk all the
junk science out there

in pursuit of the truth.

In the next hour,
we're gonna to show you

the real science behind the
mysteries of this planet.

Our solar system in the bad
Universe we all live in.

It's just may save
your life.

Phil Plait's
BAD UNIVERSE

It begins with
the flash in the sky.

Blinded by the sun,
observatories don't pick it up

until the last moment.

It comes in fast.

As it bears down, there's
barely time to sound it alert

before the stadium size
asteroids slams in the city

at nearly 4 and half
million people.

And when it's done,

all the remains of Sydney,
Australia,

is a burning crater.

Now, I have some
bad news for you.

This scenario is 100 percent,
guarantee rock solid

bet the house
going to happen.

An asteroid is going
to hit the Earth.

Maybe is city,
maybe is your city.

The questions are when,
how big, where and

can we stop it. This the
kind of predictions

are make the scientist
lose their hair.

But, that what
predictions are.

There a big what if.

So, I'm gonna take
you some place

where we could see what
happens when asteroid

hits the Earth.

Once we see what even in a
moderate size asteroid can do,

I have a feeling really wanna
learn how to stop one.

And the best place to go,
if you dealing with a lots of energy,

is EMRTC, which is an energetic
materials research and testing center.

EMRTC is one of the coolest
places on the planet.

It's where engineers,
scientists and the military

comes to blows up,
just to see what happens,

all in the name
of science, of course.

The place is littered
with tanks, missiles and stuff,

I probably don't
even know about .

There I'll meet with
my old friend Dan Durda.

He spends his life
researching asteroids

and try to figure out
what they made of,

how they formed
and what we can do

we see one had it on our way.

Hey, Phil.
-Hey, Dan.

Dan been studying
these things for 20 years

and if you need to know
how an asteroid forms a crater,

he's your man. -You're
ready for some impact physics?

Yes, ser.

Dan is going to help me model,
just how bad the destruction

could be, if even the
medium size the asteroid

was hurtling torch Sydney, Australia

and it was no way to stop it.

What we gonna see?
-Well, the first thing we gonna see

is a big loud expl*si*n.
-Yeah, I would think so.

Behind me is a truck full
of scariness.

This is 7500 pounds of
ammonium nitrate fuel oil mix,

basically fertilizer and
diesel mix together.

This is a 50 pound bag of
this stuff. Is an equivalent

of 20 pounds of TNT.
We have 150 bags,

the expl*sive equivalent
of 3000 pounds of TNT.

All of these is going
get buried into a hole

and when you
detonated... bum.

That expl*sive charge
is going to be a stand in for it

to simulate the effects
of impact crater.

If you just put the expl*sive
on top of the ground,

a lot of expl*si*n is wasted,
just going up in the air.

So, buried eight feet down,
that's gonna maximize

our crater extend. We gonna have
pretty awesome asteroid impact.

I think, we gonna get nice size
ball shaped crater out of there.

Maybe 55, 60 feet across


I cannot wait to see this.

Now, where we mimic in
the impact of an asteroid

using expl*sive, but asteroids
aren't expl*sive.

Their destructive power
comes from two things:

their mass and more
importantly their speed.

Together physicists
call this kinetic energy

and just how fast
is an asteroid move?

Well, let's compare it with
something we can all relate to.

The speed of a b*llet.
-Holy macaroni. Look at this.

Oh, that was so cool.
-Little over a 1 km on a second.

When you fire a
b*llet from a r*fle,

it's traveling about


about half of mile per second.
Typical asteroid impact velocity

is 15 miles per second,

that's thirty times
faster than a r*fle b*llet.

Now, think about the kind
of energy that is released

when something moving that fast,
it's something solid.

That velocity, that speed
translate in the energy.

It takes a huge amount of
energy to get an asteroid

moving that quickly
and releases the energy

when it stopped and
that's where the power,

the real destructive power
of an asteroid lies.

When the expl*si*n goes on,

the pressure way is going
to expand like a sphere

except the grounds on its way.
So truly it's gonna be a hemisphere,

half of a sphere and as it
expands its gonna get weaker.

Now in physics the relationship
between the strength

of that wave and its distance
from the expl*si*n itself,

is call the inverse square law.

And that basically predicts
that if 1 mile we're expecting

a pressure 4 pounds
per square inch

and then 2 miles we should
get 1 pound per square inch.

Now, the inverse square law
should be pretty accurate predictor,

but we also wanna see what
happens with our own eyes.

This is a pressure detector,
it's called a Bikini gauge.

It's named after
the Bikini's expl*si*n

of the hydrogen
b*mb test in 1950.

This big circle will pop
when is near about


inch pressure on it.

As they get smaller takes
more pressure to pops them.

Here would roughly 4
pounds per square inch.

That's enough to actually
damage your ear drums.

And if these little
guys are popped,

that's give you basically
internal organ damage.

Yeah, right here
is about right.

The icons of Sydney,
Australia, are the opera house

and the Harbour bridge.

We designed are impact
at 40:1 scale

and this mark buildings will
help show us the effect

of even a moderate
asteroid hit.

You like my stunt double?

I have some bad news.
This is a suicide mission.

You're not gonna make it,
but we appreciate your dedication

to the cause of science
and expl*sive things.

All good?

We also get nine cameras
rolling on this thing.

So, we're gonna catch up
from every angle in distance

and in super slow motion.

So, you're gonna
press the button?

Unless you want to?
-I'd love to.

I'm gonna push the button.

Everybody is ready?

Here we go.
Three, two, one.

Holy haleakala.
-Look, what I just did.

Twenty seconds later
debris was still falling.

That was amazing. The bunker
shudder, you can feel it,

pushing to the side.
It was like an earthquake.

It's fantastic.
-Classic classic impact cratering

physics going on here.
-Well, let's go to do some

field geology.
-Yeah, I think so.

Great.

See, what we got here.
-Yeah.

Holy haleakala.

Oh, man.

You can see raze
that happened on the Moon.

It's where the ejected comes
out in this clumps collapse.

Let's go little bit closer.

First stop,
my stunt double.

He looks pretty intact.
I mean, there is not even

a lot of debris damage.

I don't think, that this is
saying that is safe to be



In fact, if you watch the
footage frame by frame,

you can see the shock wave
blasted into the dummy.

Let's take a more scientific
look at the shock wave.

On the slow move camera,
you can actually see the

pressure wave
that is expands.

But, what will are
Bikini gauges tell us

about how survivable this
shock wave really was.

Oh, look at that.

Yeah, this were been a
really sucky place to stand.

Just inside the two mile limit,

trees are being blown
down by the blast.

There is basically no
surviving anything like this.

Your organs would
be destroyed.

You would be basically turn
in the karige cheese

in cased by your own skin.

First degree raining down
here that the scale

would be two or
three yards across.

So, imagine the cars raining
down like in a disaster movie

expl*si*n where cars are
falling from the sky.

So, if the initial
blast didn't k*ll you,

which it would

and the sound way passing
you by didn't k*ll you,

which it would

and if the hit didn't k*ll you,
which it would,

I imagine, something the size
of the apartment building

falling from the sky.
This is a fifteen storey

apartment building
right here.

Yeah, this is a part
of the bridge.

It didn't quite make it, did it?
There is Sydney Opera house.

The fat lady has sunk.

And then this. Holy
haleakala. Look at this.

There is anything that
should let you know

that we have to stop this
thing from happening.

We are standing on
the revers right now.

All right, let's go in.
One, two, three.

Even from up there
you can't tell how deep it is.

This is crazy.
-Yeah.

I was guessing about,
what I say,

seventeen, eighteen feet...
seventeen, eighteen feet,

what you said.

Guess what.
It's seventeen.

Phil, what you got for
diameter up there?

Sixty four feet. It's
basically what we predicted.

For all of that power
and all of that devastation,

this crater was
caused by an object

had a been an asteroid impact,

that would be about
this big.

Incredibly, an object the
size of a beach ball

could of made this crater.

In since our experiment
was done to scale,

that means that the real
asteroid striking Sydney,

would a been


And the crater in
real life would a been

a half mile wide by the
eight of the mile deep.

Pretty devastating
to poor Sydney.

It's named is Apophis.

We know it's coming.

We even know the
date it could hit.

But is there anything
we can do to stop it?

So far, we demonstrated
the destructive potential

of an asteroid impact.

Now let's look at
the obvious question,

are we in any
imminent danger?

Asteroids and comets
are left over debris

from formation of the solar system


And all that stuff is
still floating out there.

And you are slamming
into that stuff,

to the tune of hundred tons
of material every night.

That's enough to fill a ten
storey building every month.

But most of us don't
notice this light show,

because world is huge and as
the whole thing is spread out

over ten of millions
square miles.

Now, the wide produce
of surveillance cameras

has given us a better view
of this spectacular impacts.

Spectacular that is
until one hits you.

In 1490, Chinese astronomers
reported the rain of rocks

falling from the sky,
stoning 10.000 people to death.


first confirm report

of a meteorite hitting a human.

When its great big size rock,

punch through the roof
of the home Van Hodges,

amazingly she escaped with
just the bruise to her leg.

But the ants are working against us.

Every few hundred years,
we were hit by something really large,

like football field size,
definitely big enough

to take out the city. But the
ones they give me night mares,

the ones that truly
scare me are the asteroid

that can cause what
scientists call,

an extinction level event.

Forget just Sydney,
we are talking an asteroid

big enough to
wipe us all out.

Thinking can't happen?

Think again.

This hillside is a timeline
of the Earth's history.

Let me show you something
cool. Come with me.

Ah, here we go.

This is the K-T boundary.

The K-T boundary is
geological dividing line

between Earth's Cretaceous
and tertiary periods.

Now, if you look right here
from here on down,

dinosaurs and
very few mammals.

And you look up
from here going up

and there no dinosaurs
and mammals taking over,

which means at whatever
happens right as this point

is what wipe out the dinosaurs.

Whatever happened
at this thin line of rock,

changed evolution in
a blink of the eye

and scientist now believe,
that there's only one clear explanation.


a six mile wide asteroid

strike near what is now
Chicxulub, Mexico,

near Yucatan Peninsula.
It was so big,

that is the bottom
struck the Earth's crust,

the top of the asteroid
was still sticking out

of the planet's atmosphere.

If you detonated every
single nuclear weapon

on Earth simultaneously,
the dinosaur k*ller impact

would be a million
times more powerful.

The world burned
and the dinosaurs along with

most species on Earth,
where wiped out.

In the Katy boundary we found
more than enough evidence

to support the
asteroid theory.

For one thing it contains a
relatively large amounts

of iridium, an element
that's rare in the Earth,

but very common on asteroids.

You also find micro tektites,
little tiny glass bits

and that was happened
when asteroid hits the Earth,

compresses the sand,
turns into glass and stop blast out

and lens all over the Earth.
You find a lot of shocked quartz.

Quartz, that is been ram far
harder than anything Earth can do,

volcano it's not
enough to do it.

This is our point to
an asteroid origin

for this layer right here.

And the Katy boundary isn't
just in Yucatan Peninsula

where the asteroid hit.
Geologists found the same

boundary in many
locations on North America,

in the major ocean basins

and even as far
as New Zealand.

The impact was literally
a worldwide event.

And the astronomer makes
the hair on the back

my next stand up
and that's because

given enough time and
if we don't do anything about it,

this will happen again.

The cosmic clock is ticking

and it's not a matter of if
but when.

We hold the fate of our species,
our planet in our hands.

And if you not believe me,
why don't you ask this guy.

Oh, yeah. You can't,
he's dead

and if we don't do something
about this threat

it will be our bones
standing behind me.

And when we'll come back,
we will find out,

if anything can be done
to save the Earth from Armageddon.

Oh, I love destruction.

Let's say,
tomorrow morning,

the astronomer spied an
asteroid the size of the building,

headed right for us. We are
ready to snap in the action.

And do what exactly?

That's the problem.
We don't have a plan.

We don't have a
technology in place,

to face this threat.

But there is something
we have a lot of,

nuclear weapons.

Now, all that most people know
about stopping the asteroid

is the way they'd seen in
the movies. You know,

the brave astronauts plant
a nuke on the asteroid

a blow into rubble.

But would that actually work?

Can you destroy an asteroid
with nuclear weapon?

Well, let's find out.

I'm headed back to
EMRTC testing range

with Dan Drta.

Dan is the leading expert in
what's call asteroid mitigation,

the science a preventing
asteroid disasters.

Asteroids fall into
four basic categories.

Porous, rocky,
iron and a rubble pile,

which is basically a
collection of rocks.

And today,
Dan and I will test,

what would happen to each one,
if it were hit by a nuke.

This is our g*n. We're gonna
be sh**ting it like an asteroids worth.

It's say 40 mm cannon...
And it look like something like tank.

It's just about.
Just about right.

This is our porous asteroids.
This is our stand in.

This is piece of sandstone
and the next thing to do

is to whack this with the projectile
and see what will happen.

This is our simulated
nuclear weapon.

It's tiny. -Now
this is just a test

and there's nothing really
nuclear about this b*llet.

We are just using the b*llet as a
standing for multimega ton nuke

and a rock as a stand in
for a porous asteroid.

Thank you.

In the movies, the nuke
obliterates the asteroid.

Let's see what
happens in real life.

Ok. Here we go.

Three, two, one.

So, what just
happened here?

Your nuclear weapon did a lot
of damage to this asteroid.

Holy cow. -See?
-A few big pieces, right?

One big piece, two cracked
and bunch of shrapnel.

Now, imagine this rock,
only 2000 times larger,

we hit it with the nuke
and snap it on half.

Now, instead one big
asteroid coming at us,

we have to asteroids
along with 1000 of fragments

raining down to
the global disaster.

If this was a real mitigation
attempt on a real asteroid,

this a would call un
mitigation disaster. -Yeah.

I would say, this is sort
of epic fail at this point.

Right. This is not
what you want to do.

So, next I think we're gonna
have to do a more solid one.

Let's go to another asteroid.

This is a rock.

Is a piece of basalt. -There
are a lot of asteroids

visiting pass us all the time.

What percentage
of them are like this?

About half of them. Good
dense rock like this.

So, there is a fifty-fifty
chance that we have to stops

something it's gonna
be this one. -Yeah.

Well, let's wrack it then.

Two, one.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, I loved destruction.

Come on, you got it keep up.
This is an asteroid physic time

of the essence. -We try to
save the planet here.

Oh, I thought it gonna
split right a part. -No, no.

Consider it, it's much
more substantial rock

and it didn't do as much
damage. -For the most part

the asteroid is still intact.
-These are 200 yards across.

Exactly. Still very bad.
-That's very bad.

So, the rocky asteroid
not much damage but still

deadly debris. -I'm taken a
couple of pieces as souvenirs.

So, what's next?

The nickel iron asteroid.

Its mass is so dense
that even a small meteorite

can do a tremendous damage.
It's hard to imagine,

but this is a ton of steel.
About 7 percent of asteroids

are like this. About
one in fifteen. -Ready?

Let's try this one.
-Yeah. Yeah.

Three, two, one.

See what we got here.

Look at that. It's really absorb
the impact very well.

The good news from
the nickel iron test

no shrapnel. The bad news,
no damage either.

Which means, if we come
up against one of this,

we may have a hard time
hitting it with anything

that it will make
it difference.

We've one last
asteroid to try

and that is the rubble pile.

A rubble pile is an asteroid
that's been hit so many

times by other asteroids,
that's now it's just a collection

of broken debris held
together by its own gravity.

See, they orbiting each other.

What we got here
is a bag of rocks,

but in fact this is our model
for a rubble pile asteroid.

Little left. That's it.
Right there. Good.

So, in our case this burlap
sack is the gravity

holding the rocks together.

When the projectile hits right here,
think what's going to happen is

instead of seen this things scatter,
we just gonna see

a mark here and the
rest will get absorbed.

I think, you will be about right.

Here we go. Three,
two, one.

Yeah, well, there it go.

We are actually demonstrate
precisely what we predicted.

The impact a bludarited
the rock at hit,

but all rest of the rubble
pile really didn't even

see that impact.
-Right.

Most likely, a rubble pile would
just absorb a nuclear detonation.

It would be kind like
a sh**ting a bb-g*n

into a pile of sand.

So, it looks like using nukes
is risky and unpredictable

and we'd only wanna use them
as the last resort option

against an asteroid that's
right on top of us.

But unlike the movies
there is a good chance

that ain't gonna work. -We got
a remember, it' s Hollywood.

It is a movie,
that's right.

One thing we have learned,
if we want to use a nuke

against an asteroid,
we have to know in advance

what that asteroids made of.
Now, is that possible?

Well, sure. We can learn a
lot about what's up there

by studying what we
already have down here.

And that's way I'm headed
to Meteoritics laboratory at the

University of New
Mexico in Albuquerque,

to see what we can
learn from meteorites.

Hey, Adrian.
-Welcome, Phil.

For eight years, professor
Adrian Brearley,

was the creator of one of
the most comprehensive

meteorite collections
in the world.

Look at shrine to
ex-terrestrial materials.

All of these meteorites are
proof of how often we get hit

by these things. So we
better start learning,

how to stop them, now.

What I got here, is a cut
slice of the very famous

Allende meteorite,
which fell in 1969 in Mexico.

If you are about to hit
something with the hammer

or even more importantly,
laba bam edet,

it helps to know what
this thing is made of.

First, we gently cut off a
small slice of the meteorite

and stick it on the
electron microscope.

What we found is grains,
that all interlocked together.

We have an improve
knowledge how strong it is.

Now, here is the
coolest part of all this.

Astronomers can take what
they learned in this lab

and use it to find out about
the composition of an asteroid,

that's still
floating in space.

How can they do that?

Well, every type of
asteroid like rock or iron,

reflex the sun's radiation
a little bit differently.

So, if we shine a light
on meteor right in our lab

and reflex that radiation
back the same way

as an asteroid we're looking
at it in space. -We can see,

that we have a lot
of silicon, a lot of iron.

That can tell us, that the
meteorite we have down here,

is made from the same
material as the asteroid

that floating around up there.
-In that's the case,

we can tie a given meteorite
to a given asteroid.

And that will help us if we'll see
that asteroid heading for us.

If we then related to an asteroid
that's coming at us say odd,

this one matches what we
notice about this asteroid.

It's a fine grain structure,
its can hold together very well.

That means, we should do
this instead of that.

That could be months
of time we save

and that can make a difference
between this thing hitting or not.

So, that's great if we have a
meteorite from a specific asteroid.

But, if it's a different asteroid,
something we don't know much about,

or worse a comet,

then we are in trouble.

Comets.

If you thought asteroids were
bad waiting to you get a load

of might what happen
if one of this comes our way.

By now, we know that the
asteroids can really pack a punch

and if we need to stop one
that's headed for us,

we're going to have to know
much about it is possible.

But what if the object
approaching us turns out

not to be an asteroid at all.

What if I told you, that there was
something even more dangerous

out there than an asteroids,
something bigger, faster,

something we don't
know where to look for

and that can change
direction on a wink.

Well, that's something
is a comet.

A comet is basically a collection
of debris frozen together

into a big ball of cosmic ice
and that ice makes a comet's

movements unpredictable
and deadly.

I can mimic that
with the ping pong ball.

All I have to do is
poke a hole in it

and another one,
this way.

Fill it with liquid nitrogen,
which is it 300 degrees

below zero Fahrenheit.

Now you can see the jets
coming out here and here

and with the comet
that would really happens.

When this thing gets near the sun,
that ice turns back into a gas

and force its way out. And then
when you watch the comet

it's start rolling around
in all these crazy directions

depending on which
way those jets pointing.

And we can have a comet
pass very close to the Earth

and miss us except to have a
jet suddenly push it into us.

And that's make comets even
more dangerous than asteroids.

Remember back in 1997,
when the comet Hale-Bopp

streak across our skies.
Well, that comet was discovered

less than two years
before it pass near us

and moving at 70 000
miles per hour.

If this 25 mile wide comet
has change direction

and headed our way, well,
we wouldn't be here talking

about it right now.

So, now that I scared you
comes the next question.

Is there anything we can do
to stop a comet? Well,

to find that out we're gonna
need to make a comet.

I got everything to
do that right here.

So, this is gonna be a
pretty good approximation.

The water is the main
ingredient of comets.

I'll put it on spreads of ammonia

a very common
ingredient in space.

Coinsr, which will
be our organics.

There are various
organic compounds.

Founding comets like amino acids,
the building blocks of life.

Some dirt, because there's a
lots of rocks in comets

and it's that carbon in it.
So, here comes the charcoal.

Comets are cold and so I need
to chill this with dry ice.

There it is a frozen
carbon dioxide in comets.

So, this is not
entirely unrealistic.

So, just shake it up a little
bit and the dry ice cost

from being a
solid into a gas.

Now, let's us see
what we made here

and we got...

a comet.

So, now that we got our a
little scale model comet,

how we can use it to figure out
how to stop one of this things.

Well, comets are
made from ice, right?

So, if you're thinking heat,
you're on the right track.

Remember, comet change
direction by venting gas.

So, could we use the heat from
a laser to drill a hole in a comet,

making it at shut out enough
gas to change direction.

Well, I just happen to
have something here,

that might tell us if
that will work.

This is laser glows
Hercules laser beam.

This is the most powerful
handheld laser in the world.

Check this out.

Watch this.

That's hot.

So, we have our comet and
we have our heat source.

Now, let's see if this theory holds
water or in this case gas.

If this works, the heat from our
laser will cause our model comet

to meet a small amount
of carbon dioxide.

We're doing something.
We are seeing a little bit

of out gases. But could
this little jets of gas

create an push to change
the direction of our comet.

All right. Let's go.

Well, let's pretend
our model comet

is the real thing and see if
we'll be able to save Sydney

from comet Armageddon.

Oh, well,
so long Sydney.

So, we're gonna have
to find something else

and I get to say, I don't
think that I'm done yet.

You know, it is occurred to me
that we might missing something

pretty obvious.
The sun.

This grapefruit
will be our comet

and this is our solar mirror.

It's called a Fresnel lens.
It gathered a huge amount of light

and can focus it
on one spot.

In fact, it's so bright, that I
have to wear protective glasses.

So, if this will floating out in space
we can use it to concentrate the sun light

on a comet or asteroid
just like this.

Look at that. You can see
the smoke coming up

and as I get to the
juice of the grapefruit

you can see its
sputtering out there.

Well, if you can make hot enough
that material can turn into gas

and shut out it would push the
comet in the other direction

just like a rocket blast.

It's pretty cool.

That was a fun
little demonstration.

In the theory behind it is sound,
but we are a long way from having

the technology to make
either a solar mirror or

or a space laser work.

And to develop those
kind of technologies

is going to take time and that
means we need to locate

any k*ller rocks or comets
as soon as we can.

We need to have that
time to focus our effort

what might be our only chance
at stopping a catastrophe.

Currently NASA is already tracking
an amazing 7000 nearest objects

with more added every day.
So, what exactly are they doing

with all this data.

Somewhere, there must be
some kind of high command center,

that digest and analyzes
all of these information.

Some kind of NORAD
for asteroid tracking.

And it turns out
there is such a place.

I'm in Cambridge Massachusetts,
at the Harvard & Smithsonian

minor planets center.
Whenever the astronomer

sees a threat in the skies,
they send that information here.

The team at this nerve center
analysis, processes and catalogs the data

and they are always ready for
the next threat from space.

Tim?

Phil. Hi.

Timothy Spahr is the director
of the Minor planets center.

Could all our lives
rest with just him?

So, is it just you?
-No, there are six people here

in Minor planets.
-Six? There are six people

who are handling all
of this information,

all of this data about objects out
of space they are passing the Earth?

Yes.

That's not even really enough
to stuff a food restaurant.

It's pretty amazing.
-We are good people.

That makes me feel better.

It's just a half dozen people
who come to the office every day

and they have the fate of
the world in their hands.

There's plenty of rooms for
things to sneak passed us.

In order to cover the
entire sky every night

we have to quadruple all
the number of observatories.

There also the problem
that half of the objects

can come from the
sun side of the sky

and no server detect
those objects. So, you get

no warning before impact and
I mean no warning at all.

Basically, the first notice we
have is a flash on the sky.

Yeah and then boom.

Maybe we get 24 hours warning
on a 100 meter object.

So, if we sees something
that big coming in

what do you do?
-I don't really think

we do anything.
We'd evacuate.

Yeah.

What are you do on
the Sunday April 13. 2046?

Well, mark your calendar,
because that's the day

we maybe hit
by this k*ller rock.

So, we know that's sooner or
later k*ller asteroid or comet

is going to have
Earth and its crossroads.

And right now, we may
be virtually defenseless.

To have any hope to
developing the technology

to stop Armageddon we need
advance warning what's coming

and when. And that starts
with telescopes.

Telescopes like this one.

I'm high in Magdalena
mountains of New Mexico,

at the Magdalena
ridge observatory.

The observatory operates on the
watchful eyes of Eileen and Bill Ryan.

This husband and wife team
has spent the last 17 years

hunting for comets and asteroids
that could wipe us out.

Holy Haleakala.
Look at that.

There's the telescope, Phil.

All right. Let's
fire this things up. -Set.

Holy...

That's awesome.

It's 52 000 pounds.
-So, more than 27 times.

I see stars.

Holy grace.

So, now basically we'll be able
opponent at some object of interest.

No the enemy.
That's our motto. -Let's go.

So, how do you find the tiny
moving object in the sky?

Well, you start by looking
at things they aren't moving.

This is the stars are
much more distant.

They appear to us as
essentially stationary.

So, we will take a series of images
and we will move through them

we see that we have a very clear
object moving through the field.

On average might ten or
twelve discovered per night.

We have to assess
are they a danger,

how strong are they,
how big are they.

All of that work that we do
can leads to predictions

for when and where
an object will hit.

The good news is that if one
of this objects big enough

and far enough away. We
have pretty decent chances

detecting it with plenty
with advance warning.

The bad news is that we
already seen something big

and it's headed for us.
The fact, it's going

right through our neighborhood.
-Forget the neighborhood.

This one gonna pass right
through your front door.

This is a model of a real
asteroid, called Apophis.

It could be...
-A rubble pile.

It's a size of football stadium.
-So, it's couple of yards across.

Practically like a city block.
-And you said it comes close.

How close is close?
-Let me show you.

What we have here is jet
propulsion laboratories,

small body database. You can
go and look up the orbits

of any nearest asteroid.
Watch closely here,

the closing distance between
Apophis and the Earth.

Here we are 2029.

Look at that.

That's pretty close,
isn't it?

This thing is gonna pass
so close to the Earth in 2029,

it's gonna fly under the high
our communication satellites.

What's happen if it hits us?

An object of that size
if would strike the Earth

would that energy
about 500 megatons.

That's 10 times larger than
the largest nuclear weapon

ever detonate on
the face of the Earth.

And 5000 times more
powerful than Hiroshima.

What would happen
if something like that

came in over Sydney harbor?

They would be no
Sydney after that.

So, the goal here is to stop it.
How we do that?

Three, two, one.

Remember, our test show that
using the nuclear weapon

is risky. It's a last resort
option against the asteroid

that's already so close,
that's there no other choice.

But with an
asteroid like Apophis,

we have years a lead time.
So, is there a better approach?

Probably the best solution
that we have in hand right now

today something that we
can actually do,

is something called a
kinetic impactor.

Kinetic impactor is a spacecraft
fired at the distant asteroid,

that in theory will actually pushed
the asteroid out of the way.

If we have enough
advance warning,

a little push maybe all it takes
to change the asteroid's course

from a devastating impact
to near miss.

And Dan and I were
headed to the southwest

research institute in Texas,
to put that theory to the test.

Sorry, I hear you have a
pretty big g*n around here.

That we do.
-Yeah.

This is our kinetic k*ll spacecraft.
We gonna shut this

at 2 km/seconds.
-We have our impactor,

now what we
need is an asteroid

and it's just happen
that we have one.

Yeah, smells like
mass extinction.

The weighs 2700 pounds.
We gonna set the sphere down,

so that the impactor would
hit it straight on.

That's it. That's a center. -We
gonna smack it as hardest we can

and get all that force right into
it. We only can do that once.

Now, back in 2005,
NASA did something similar

with their Deep impact mission,

where they slam to giant
block of copper into a comet.

And while it proof that we
could hit a spitting comet

with a kinetic space craft,

the impact itself through
up so much dust,

that was difficult to
study the results.

So, we don't know
exactly what happened.

Today we are gonna find out
exactly what's going to happen.

It isn't just a force of the
spacecraft hitting

the asteroid that matters.
The impact also releases

debris or injective which acts
like the frost from the rocket,

pushing the asteroid even
more in opposite direction.

sh**ting granite
chunks out of here

at one or two km/second.

That's gonna be transform.
Even more momentum.

It's more bang for your bag.
-You got it.

Look likes we gonna
make a death star here.

Let's blow this thing
and go home. -Awesome.

We will find out if we
deflect it an asteroid...

Holy haleakala.
Look at that.

...or just made a bad
problem even worse.

We are about to test
whether our remark space probe,

call the kinetic impactor,
has enough power to push it

an asteroid out of the way.
Now it's time to lock,

load and fire. -This is 850 g
of smoke propellant.

So, almost two pounds
of propellant. -Correct.

Can I hit the button?
-I wish, I could say yes, but no.

No? All right.

Here we go.
-Yeah. Awesome.

If the impactor can push the sphere
even of a fraction of an inch,

the test will be a success.

We will fire on zero.
-Five, four, three, two, one, zero.

Let's go see what
we got here. -OK.

Oh, my God.
Look at that.

Holy haleakala. Look
at that. -Look at that.

Cracked all and back to here.
-That's a 120 degrees of crack.

I'm dying to see
high speed footage.

Take a pick of this.

What we got here? One?
-I'm just gonna play this

frame by frame at the beginning
that you can see what's going on.

Start here to see that.
-Oh, projectile.

Oh, that's a projectile.
-Is not that awesome?

Look. Kick it back.
-It's what we wanted.

That's our deflection.
-Yeah, right.

Not only that we strike it,
all that ejective spring off

push that sphere back of it.
-We pushed it. We pushed it.

We save the Earth once again.

So, we'll send the space
probe...bam... Hit this thing

and push it out of the way.
Hooray. It's gonna miss us.

Not so quick.
There is another problem.

There is chance the asteroid
could going to region of space,

called the key hole.

And if the asteroid passes
through that region,

here's gravity has
just to right strength,

to bend the orbit of asteroid
enough that in some point later

it comes back and the
Earth and the asteroid

at the same place
at the same time.

Boom. We have an impact.
So, instead solving the problem

we just postponed. So, if it
passes through this region

of space, bam, we are hit.
-Yeah.

So, what we do? -There is
a technic we have called,

a gravity tractor. A gravity
tractor is nothing more

than a small spacecraft.
Maybe the size of communication

satellite. A tone or two will do.
We park the spacecraft

next to the asteroid never
actually touch the asteroid.

We use the ion frosters
on the spacecraft

to prevent the two from falling together
do they the wrong natural gravity.

If you not leading at fall to it,
that must mean, that you toeing

the asteroid along with it.
-We using gravity as a tool.

There only having a change
the speed of the asteroid

by literary fraksens
of millimeter per cycle.

It's a finesse type of operation.

And because of the kinetic impactor
created only a small pieces

of shrapnel the asteroid's
gravity will keep it all together.

We got him. We save
the world. -Excellent.

So, if we see an asteroid or
comet headed to the Earth,

a two pronged approaches
the way to go.

The first thing we do,

smack it with the kinetic
impactor. Push it out of the way,

make sure it's not a
immediate threat and then

we used the gravity tug
and we finessed that orbit.

We put it in the precise trajectory,
so, that we know, we are safe

for the foreseeable future.

But our biggest enemy
isn't just the asteroid,

it's time. The clock is ticking.
Apophis could be a real

threat to the Earth. We got
the technology to do this,

but we have to build the
equipment and we need a lot of

lean time to be able
to lunch this thing,

get it to the asteroid and
move it out of the way.

Because it literally, a snail's
pace maybe the difference

between life on Earth
and no life at all.

We better do
something, now.

Before one day we looked
to the skies and find out

it's already too late.