Following my retirement, we have closed our company for new business.

Please do not hesitate to contact me directly, our email portal remains open and I would be delighted to hear from you and provide ongoing support or advice.

Richard Thomson

support@rta-instruments.com

Companies represented up to the end of December 2023. Please now contact them directly.

k-Space Associates, Inc.
Phone: +1 (734) 426-7977
requestinfo@k-space.com
https://www.k-space.com

STAIB INSTRUMENTS GmbH
Phone: +49 8761 76 24 0
sales@staibinstruments.com
https://www.staibinstruments.com/

Friday 8 March 2013

Paint your asteroid

Last month was quite worrying with a meteor striking the earth and an asteroid passing close by. Not everyday events but potentially very life changing.  One new idea from Texas A&M University to deflect earth bound asteroids involves using paint. It is all due to the Yarkovsky effect, a force, on a body in space caused by the anisotropic emission of thermal photons that carry momentum. Apparently spraying dry paint powder onto a spinning asteroid could generate unequal heating effects with the photons imparting sufficient momentum to cause the asteroid to change course. Bruce Willis is on call if Plan B is required.

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