Use nuclear weapons against asteroids plunge into Earth

How to save Earth when an asteroid plunges into it? Is detonating nuclear weapons the only way to deflect an asteroid?
The plot of a 1990’s action movie mentions that scientists from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory of the US Department of Energy and Air Force are studying how humans can detonate nuclear weapons. to deflect an asteroid rushing towards Earth.

In a new study published in the journal Acta Astronautica, scientists said, in the future, a dangerous asteroid will plunge itself and collide with Earth. Relatively, an asteroid does not need to be too large to cause severe destruction. One of the simulations in this study is the asteroid 300 meters (1,000 feet) in diameter, the size of six Olympic swimming pools. This is not a large asteroid, but it would still destroy an area of ​​a large city with just the initial impact. An asteroid of this size is possible; as of October 2020, scientists have discovered 9,336 near-Earth object / asteroids (NEO / NEA) that are larger than 140 meters in diameter. Among them, scientists have classified 2,122 as potentially hazardous objects (PHO). So the risks here are not astronomically low – they are more likely to fall to Earth. Scientists say NASA has found that nuclear weapons are “10 to 100 times more effective” in moving asteroids out of a collision course with Earth than alternatives. Non-nuclear, thanks to the much higher energy of fission materials than conventional materials. This energy will apply the asteroid / asteroid an appropriate force to push the asteroids / meteors closer to Earth out of their original orbit. Detonating nuclear weapons to prevent an asteroid / asteroid plunge into Earth is considered optimal and feasible; Source: popularmechanics.com There are two ways to “treat” an asteroid / meteor – disruption or deflection it. In their research, the scientists ran computer simulations to see how it could dislodge the asteroid 300 meters from its flight path toward Earth. Shattering was Armageddon’s solution – hitting the asteroid directly to shatter it into much less damaging pieces. The other way – deflector, is a more “elegant” solution, according to the researchers. This only involves redirecting the entire asteroid so that it doesn’t hit Earth, eliminating the remaining variable left behind by a broken asteroid – debris. When detonating a nucleus near an asteroid, what happens is quite simple – detonating a nuclear device above an asteroid irradiates a certain surface area. Material near the surface melted almost immediately. This small amount of superheated matter then expands out of the asteroid as “blown”, creating a pressure wave in the remaining asteroid. A rocket-like emission pulse is transmitted and the asteroid’s initial velocity is altered, deflecting the asteroid. Nuclear detonation in simulations to change the intensity of its released neutron energy, the scientists found, up to 70% of the deflector action. So if we do this in the real world, the nuclear device will liquefy part of the asteroid’s surface, creating a backlash that alters the asteroid’s orbit. It must be a nuclear device that releases neutrons, not an X-ray emitter, to be as efficient as possible, the researchers said. And while we hope we never have to use those, it’s definitely better if we know in advance that we can.