That's exactly what NASA did on Monday night when a spacecraft slammed into an asteroid and self-destructed.
However, planetary defence specialists assert that in practise, the best and safest response would be something more subtly done,
such as ramming a small spaceship into a potentially hazardous inbound space rock to simply push it off track.
The egg-shaped asteroid Dimorphos, which was seen in photographs transmitted as the impact approached,
a seven-year project that cost more than $300 million and launched a spacecraft in November 2021
conduct the world's first test of planetary defence technologies.