Let's face it. There is a good reason to fear asteroids. They're constantly grazing past Earth and they did wipe out the dinosaurs after all.
However, many believe any asteroids coming our way may be destroyed. At least, that's what sci-fi movies say. Yet, according to new research, it seems these celestial objects are tougher than we thought.
Novel work by Johns Hopkins combined a new understanding of rock fracture and a new computer modeling method in order to simulate asteroid collisions in the hopes of helping with asteroid impact and deflection strategies.
"We used to believe that the larger the object, the more easily it would break, because bigger objects are more likely to have flaws. Our findings, however, show that asteroids are stronger than we used to think and require more energy to be completely shattered," said Charles El Mir, a recent Ph.D. graduate from the Johns Hopkins University's Department of Mechanical Engineering and the paper's first author.
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