A nuclear bomb could save Earth from a catastrophic asteroid impact, according to a first-of-its-kind lab study.The new experiment, conducted using the world's most powerful laboratory radiation source,

Eager to not meet a similar fate, the National Academy of Sciences has called for planetary defense to be a national priority. NASA has already sent its own space mission—the Double Asteroid Redirection Test ( DART )—to test the effectiveness of using kinetic impact to knock a potentially life-threatening asteroid off its destructive course.

Humanity could use a nuclear bomb to deflect a massive, life-threatening asteroid hurtling towards Earth in the future, according to scientists who tested the theory in the labaratory by blasting X-rays at a marble-sized "mock asteroid".