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Deflecting Asteroids with Paint
schnippy writes: "Researchers at the University of Arizona have calculated that small earth-crossing asteroids can be deflected by "coating them with a layer of white paint or dust." This finding won't be of much help against the larger doomsday asteroids (like the recently discovered 1950 DA) but it will help deflate military proposals to use nuclear weapons to deflect potentially hazardous asteroids."
Coat them in a reflective paint so that they don't heat up when entering the atmosphere...
That'll work...
Most articles on the 1950 DA asteroid mention that it can be deflected "by selectively dropping white chalk or black carbon powder to darken or lighten some regions". That's because the potential impact is in 878 years, so a small nudge now can make a huge change over many centuries. In other words: yes this paint technique can help against 1950 DA. Claiming anything else shows a poor understanding of the basics of asteroid deflection.
If you detect these things early enough, you only have to change their trajectory by a few inches to make them miss Earth completely. Why do you need nukes to do that?
If predicting the trajectory of an asteroid's orbit is so heavily dependent on surface reflectivity, how do we know the change we make will not bring it closer to earth and not farther away? I liken it to our ability to change the weather, but not predict the weather.
I would prefer to make the trajectory change closer to the impact event so that we could more accurately predict the results.
If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.
It's both paint and nuclear! You could have paint ball games on a planetary scale.Use radioactive radium paint it's both paint and nuclear! You could have paint ball games on a planetary scale.Use radioactive radium paint it's both paint and nuclear! You could have paint ball games on a planetary scale.
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
Why does everyone whine about nuking asteroids? Why NOT nuke them? Even the really big ones? Even the ones that people say are "the size of Texas"? And I don't mean the "try one nuke and give up" that they do in the movies right before sending the poorly trained oil rig workers. I mean rain down thousands, if not tens or hundreds of thousands, of 150 megaton nukes. Turn that whole nasty blob of metal and rock into white hot hell-fire plasma. Not only would it be fun and pretty, but we'd also get to empty out all the really nasty big mother nukes that have been sitting around and collecting dust forever.
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
Interesting choice...
- A small rate of change over a very long time
- A rapid change close to the point when change is needed
We see these types of things happen all the time -- notably on 'real life' cop shows. Either you steer early and avoid an obstacle, or you yank the wheel at the last second, lose traction, and skid into oblivion anyway.(OR)
I'll take the first choice, thanks. That way we can know earlier whether it's working or not, and take extra steps if necessary.
"...America's great minds of today, teaching America's great minds of tomorrow. Poor bastards." -- A Beautiful Min
but it will help deflate military proposals to use nuclear weapons to deflect potentially hazardous asteroids.
No it doesn't silly, it means we need to attach a bunch of paint buckets to a bunch of nuclear missles, fire the paint-missles at the big rock, and *boom* *splat*, earth is saved again!
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
Same theory, more active approach and to paint it would still require a launch, intercept, and application of device, be it paint or a giant magnetic field. The best part is a system like this could be used to steer an earth crosser into earth orbit, providing plenty of zero G raw materials for future missions.
If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.
This morning a deranged person tried to cover Bill Gates in white paint. When arrested by officers of the BSA, he declared to be "trying to gently nudge him out of the solar system, to avoid future collisions." He will be sued under the DMCA for disabling the burglar alarm.
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"...zero G raw materials for future missions."
Or... a counterweight for a space elevator!I suppose the longer we wait, the more stuff we can take -- it'll take less fuel to get there. (Unless we're using antimatter propulsion in 850 years or so... then I guess it really wouldn't matter.)
"...America's great minds of today, teaching America's great minds of tomorrow. Poor bastards." -- A Beautiful Min
God, I like how you think, even if we are on different sides of the T(H)GSB fence.
What he is talking about folks, is the bigger the counterweight, The bigger payload your space elevator could carry, without needing a thicker teather toward the top. Also it enables construction by lowering strings from orbit, because there is something nice sized in orbit to teather to. This is especially important for the first strand, that will be too weak initially to support any weight at all, and certainly not the weight of an entire other strand.
If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.
So in Armaggeddon 2, instead of oil rig workers, they'll send... house painters?
when it comes round the next time and it's *already* white!
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Put huge type R stickers on them as that will make them faster in whatever direction is opposite from the sticker location. Or paint them yellow, yellow isa fast color.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
At last, Microsoft has software that's good for something!
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
Why not use a laser to heat
the surface of the asteroid,
This will create a hot plasma jet which
will alter the trajectory of the asteroid.
Oink.NET and timothy obviously didn't read the article referenced by Slashdot yesterday (talking about 1950 DA). It explicitly states:
Maybe he's a busy guy, but I still think timothy should read the articles before he posts them (he posted both of these articles).
Maybe he's a busy guy, but I still think timothy should read the articles before he posts them
Maybe *you* should read the previous posts, in this case the 3rd post of the main thread (browsing at -1).
The mass of any body is not consistent across it's surface. For instance, there are places on the earth that "pull" harder than others. This is well mapped on earth, and there are satellite launches planned or in orbit to more closely map this phenomenon, but we have just barely scratched the surface as far as research into, for instance, Jupiter's Local gravitational variations, which have a much greater impact on solar orbit calculations than any body in the solar system.
The earth's variable gravity field is caused by the uneven surface (presence of mountains and valleys) as well as concentrations of mass that are denser than average. While Jupiter may have a solid core, the vast majority of the planet is gaseuos or fluid. There can be no mountains or valleys, and any concentrations of mass that are denser than average would automatically sink and redistribute themselves.
For these reasons, I think you'll find that Jupiter's gravity field is quite uniform.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
In fact, It would take the sun 33 years to produce that much energy.
I think your numbers are off a little. If we could somehow redirect that Texas-sized rock and make it crash into the sun, it would take far less than 33 years' time for the sun to vaporize it. You are basically saying that it would pass through the sun and emerge from the other side with only its outer layer melted off.
You're probably right about not being able to do the job with our entire nuclear arsenal, though.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
Fine asteroid research, brought to you by a grant from Sherwin-Williams.
I'll give you this here apple with'n bite taken out of it, if'n I can paint yer asteroid fer a spell...