© 2024 Iowa Public Radio
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Blasting Asteroids: ISU Team Works to Defend Against "City-Killers"

Lwp Kommunikáció
/
Flickr

Hollywood has played out the disaster of an asteroid hitting Earth in films like  Armageddon  and Deep Impact, but is a killer asteroid really in Earth’s future? 

"According to previous history, it will happen during the next 100 years," says Bong Wei, the founding director of the Asteroid Deflection Research Center. "It's time to see an impact by say, a 50 meter asteroid."

On this River to River segment, Ben Kieffer talks with Wei about the threat of asteroids and how researchers at Iowa State University are working to develop technologies to prevent asteroids from colliding with Earth. Wei recently helped conduct a three-year study on the feasibility of rapidly intercepting and nuking an incoming asteroid.

Ben Kieffer is the host of IPR's River to River