Scientists plan to deflect giant asteroid with paintball gun

You thought Armageddon was a bit farfetched? Wait until you hear this plan to save Earth from a giant asteroid using paintball pellets.

Every so often stories pop up saying that a massive bit of space debris might smash into dear old planet Earth and wipe us out. Then it is announced that it is actually going to miss us by hundreds of thousands of miles and we all get along with our lives.

But if one does decide to meet us head on, they have a plan, a very strange plan. According to Gizmodo, scientists at MIT in the US have been eying up an asteroid called Apophis. This 27 gigaton lump of rock will come close to us twice in the near future, in 2029 and 2036.

The lads in the white coats reckon that they can move its path just by painting it. The plan involves sending a load of paintball pellets into space and timing the mass firing so that every inch of the giant rock is painted white. The impact of the pellets will make a small difference too but the big change will be caused by the colour. The white surface will reflect the sun and that should be enough to move the path of the potential death ball.

They do reckon it should take 20 years of the sun hitting this white ball to do trick so we need to know the rock is coming well in advance but apart from that, it sounds like a plan to us.

As long as they send Bruce Willis, we’re cool with it.