Such a tactic could actually make the problem worse by increasing the amount of asteroid fragments that do end up hitting the Earth.

Outside, the asteroid fragments were still sleeting down in a blaze of light.

A simulated boulder, a souvenir of modern Manhattan's Precambrian bedrock, lodges like an asteroid fragment in the relief's rippling rings.

The asteroid fragment didn't need an impulse engine; we had that.

The asteroid fragment grew until they could clearly see its irregular surface as it tumbled along in the air toward them, trailing its incandescent wake.

Asteroid (1998), a NBC TV movie, features two large asteroid fragments on collision courses with the Earth.

While the United States government engage in political maneuvering, smaller asteroid fragments precede the main body wreaking havoc on the planet.

Probably didn't like the taste of that asteroid fragment.

Now, scientists from Italy and the Czech Republic, writing in the journal Science, offer an explanation of how small asteroids and asteroid fragments make the leap.

Then a final huge asteroid fragment hit very hard, jarring the entire starship, as if in one last try at its destruction.