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Laser-blasting System Could Vaporize Big Asteroids

Friday, February 15, 2013 15:10

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(Before It's News)

DE-STAR, a proposal to blow up asteroids as they bear down on Earth. Credit: Philip M. Lubin

The uncanny — but unrelated — combination of today’s close flyby of Asteroid 2012 DA14 and the meteor that created an airburst event over Russia has many wondering how we could deal with future potential threats to Earth from space. A group of researchers are hoping to aim a laser-blasting vaporizer in its direction and blow it away.

Dubbed DE-STAR, or Directed Energy Solar Targeting of Asteroids and exploRation, the theoretical orbital system is designed to convert the sun’s energy into laser blasts that would annihilate any cosmic intruders bearing down on Earth.

Although the system sounds like a plot from a science fiction movie, the researchers — led by scientists at two California universities — maintain that it is built on sound principals.

“This system is not some far-out idea from Star Trek,” stated Gary Hughes, a researcher and professor from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, in a press release.

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Read the rest of Laser-blasting System Could Vaporize Big Asteroids (389 words)