Killer Comet in Don’t Look Up Could’ve Been Destroyed

In Adam McKay’s Don’t Look Up, two scientists set out to warn the world about an incoming planet-killing comet threat, but no one cares until it’s too late.

The satirical sci-fi film, at its core, is an attempt to warn humanity about more realistic threats to our planet like climate change. But if the “planet killer” comet from the film really were to be an imminent threat, would humanity kick the bucket as the dinosaurs did?

Scientists Say Don't Look Up's Comet Could Technically Be Destroyed — Don’t Look Up

Well, two physicists pondered the same question and concluded that it would not be the end of humanity.

In their 15-page paper, titled Don’t Forget To Look Up, Philip Lubin and Alexander Cohen of the University of California at Santa Barbara stated that a 6-mile-wide asteroid or comet similar to the one that wiped out the dinosaurs could, theoretically, be dispersed using nuclear explosives.

Given our technological advances, which the dinosaurs obviously lacked, albeit requiring a quick response, it isn’t out of the “realm of possibilities” to save humanity.

We have shown that for the extreme case of a 6-month warning of the impact of a 10-km diameter (asteroid or comet), humanity could, in theory, defend itself with an array of nuclear penetrators launched 5 months prior to impact and an intercept one month prior to impact.

If a 10km-wide asteroid were to enter the Earth’s atmosphere, it could possibly lead to a rise in temperature up to 300C, destroying all life on Earth. And although it might pose some difficulty in the political aspect of things, technically, our scientific advances should be able to deal with such a threat before it enters the atmosphere.

The last resort would be to take life underwater in an attempt to protect some species of life form. Although we’d probably never be in such a situation, guess we could call it ‘going back to our roots.’

However, the paper concluded on a positive note, stating, “Ideally, we would never be in this situation, but better ready than dead.”

The paper talked about another hypothetical situation that would be impossible to avoid. If ever an asteroid the size of Texas (approx. 830 km diameter) were to impact Earth in less than a month, it would take about 1 million times more energy than all the Earth’s nuclear arsenal.

Here the duo recommended three possible options: a) party, b) move to Mars or the Moon to party, c) do what they did in Chicken Run during take-off.

While you bet on which of the ‘four horsemen’ (planet-killer asteroid, zombie apocalypse, alien invasion, climate change) will eventually lead to humanity’s doom, you can watch Don’t Look Up on Netflix.

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