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@Bionic-Badger still, that was 2 years ago and even if it can only generate so much energy for that long, we do not have that many nukes, in 10 minutes though, we could shoot this 60 times. Mabye to date, it could have had another amplifier added for a power of 1000 terrawatts :eg:.
60 x 30 femtoseconds x 300TW = 540 joules ~ 100W light bulb on for 5.4 seconds. Even if they kept firing that laser for those two years since that article, it'd produce only about 1/75th the energy of a single ton of TNT. The MIRACL megawatt continuous laser would need to be run for more than an hour to produce as much energy as 1 ton of TNT. That laser works by damaging the projectile, causing it to self-destruct, not vaporization from the energy of the beam itself. It's really amazing how much energy is in chemical and nuclear reactions.
Even nukes would probably be too weak to do much to an asteroid, if it weren't detected in time to use other methods to deflect it away over time like solar sails, or rockets, or asymmetric coloring.