• Question: What would you do if an asteroid came to earth and you had to find a resolution what skills in particular would you use??

    Asked by hand520ryot on 17 Mar 2025.
    • Photo: Charlotte Slade

      Charlotte Slade answered on 17 Mar 2025:

      Okay, asteroid incoming? Challenge ACCEPTED! 🌍🚀

      First things first – material analysis skills are gonna be my secret weapon. Here’s how I’d approach this:

      Technical Skills:
      • Precise material composition analysis
      • Understanding atomic-level structural properties
      • Calculating potential impact trajectories
      • Rapid data interpretation
      • Complex mathematical modelling

      Practical Problem-Solving Approach:
      • Identify asteroid’s exact composition
      • Determine structural weaknesses
      • Calculate potential intervention strategies
      • Model multiple scenario outcomes

      My physicist brain would be working overtime to:
      • Understand if we could potentially break/deflect the asteroid
      • Calculate energy requirements for intervention
      • Predict potential fragmentation risks
      • Model different technological approaches

      Teamwork would be CRUCIAL. This isn’t a solo mission – we’d need:
      • Astrophysicists
      • Aerospace engineers
      • Computational modellers
      • Materials scientists/ Astrogeologists

      Pro survival tip: Stay calm, trust the data, and remember – science has solved seemingly impossible problems before.

      Basically, I’d be the person in the room saying “Okay, let’s break this down systematically” while everyone else is panicking.

      Asteroid vs Scientist? My money’s on SCIENCE (technology-willing).

    • Photo: Zoe Vance

      Zoe Vance answered on 21 Mar 2025:

      If we were relying on my skillset as an evolutionary biologist/bioinformatician we’d be in a LOT of trouble.

      I might have some skills that could come in handy like programming or statistical modelling, I even studied some geology in uni so I do know a little bit about rocks and minerals, but realistically I’d be thanking our lucky stars we have physicists like Charlotte to tackle the problem and letting the experts do their job – the joy of having specialists around!

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