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Space
Space
Science
Leonard David

Could we defend Earth against a 'rubble pile' asteroid?

Earth NASA
A ball of grey boulders and rocks seen against the blackness of space.

The last few years saw a spate of up-close encounters and smash-ups with various asteroids. Interestingly, the rubble pile composition of asteroids has been surprising in several cases. 

Asteroid probes from several nations have found not solid objects, but countless pieces of gravel and boulders loosely bound together by the object's own small gravity field. 

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