To nuke or not to nuke? That is the question: whether ’tis nobler to suffer the impacts of outrageous asteroids or to take arms against them, and by doing so end them. And a recent study says that, if necessary, nuke ’em.

When an asteroid a few miles wide hit Earth 66 million years ago, it wiped out the dinosaurs and most of the other life on our planet.

Such planet killers are rare, but they could still hit us. So scientists have studied ways to deflect them. With enough warning, we could pelt an asteroid with cannonballs – hunks of metal traveling at thousands of miles per hour. That could give the asteroid a big enough nudge to miss us.

If the asteroid is too big, or it’s discovered too late, the obvious solution seems to be nuclear weapons. But they have their own drawbacks – they might split an asteroid apart, pelting Earth with a bunch of big rocks instead of one giant one.

But a recent study by weapons experts found that an explosion in front of an asteroid might kick it away.

Researchers zapped some tiny simulated asteroids with X-rays in the Z Machine at Sandia National Laboratories – a device used to study nuclear weapons.

Script by Damond Benningfield