However, almost three decades later, new simulations suggest that this bonkers plot could actually be our best hope of avoiding a doomsday asteroid. Chinese researchers now say that blowing up an asteroid by burying a nuclear bomb deep inside isn't just possible, but the most efficient form of planetary defence. Using computer simulations, the researchers found that a 164–foot (50m) asteroid could be completely blown apart by a 300–kiloton bomb. That is about 20 times the size of 'Little Boy', the nuclear bomb detonated over Hiroshima during the Second World War. Sending an even larger three–megaton bomb – 200 times the size of Little Boy – could shatter a 328–foot (100m) asteroid into safe pieces.