In the recent Oscar-nominated film “Don’t Look Up,” stars Jennifer Lawrence and Leonardo DiCaprio play astronomers who struggle to get the world to take seriously the threat of a 9-km-diameter comet headed directly for Earth. In the sci-fi satire, the horror of the planet-killing comet is second only to the bigger tragedy of human apathy and misplaced values; it is a driver of the plot, but the science behind humanity’s approach to the doomsday rock is given a light treatment.

For UC Santa Barbara physicist Philip Lubin(link is external), who conducts research in a wide variety of fields from cosmology to planetary defense, however, the science hits home. To him, the how to actually protect Earth from cosmic collisions is key. Could humanity save itself in such a scenario of a “planet killer” with short term notice?