If an asteroid was on a collision course with Earth, how should we respond? Well, if we had no warning, probably a bit like they do in season 5 of @ExpanseOnPrime

Had a blast chatting with scientists about planetary defense for this week's newsletter: https://scioffi.substack.com/p/how-wed-really-defend-earth-from

Big caveat here is that this is NOT a situation we want to be in at all. Ideally, scientists would spot a dangerous asteroid when it was still years away and be able to deflect it onto another path.

But, if it was coated in Martian stealth tech, we may have to nuke it.

There are some...questions about the UN’s decision to break the asteroid up with a rail gun first. Lots of small asteroid chunks might be just as bad or worse than one big rock!

Thankfully, it was a calculated risk and Earth’s defenders were able to vaporize the chunks. Whew.

The real lesson here is to never doubt Avasarala’s warnings of impending doom.