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Armageddon... in 2014. Almost.
anetic was among several to note a story making the rounds striking fear into the hearts of many.
Armageddon will just barely miss us, so make sure to get your panic in the streets over with early.
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Here at NASA JPL http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/risk/2003qq47.html is the risk summary.
but the brits are playing it down here http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3200019.stm
Hmmmmmm now where did I put that Anderson shelter?
"Common sense is nothing more than a deposit of prejudices laid down in the mind before you reach 18" Einstein
Armageddon
A roughneck crew of the world's foremost deep-core oil drillers, including Harry S. Stamper (Bruce Willis), set out on a heroic journey into space to save the world from an oncoming asteroid the size of Texas.
For you Spetics out there, a tonne is a metric ton. It is equal to a mass of 1000kg. There are approximately 0.454kg in one of your pound thingies.
Stick Men
The probability of this one hitting the earth is near to zero, according to the JPL NEO site, but eventually one will turn up with a much higher probability, given that there are many objects that have not yet been discovered and that comets can change their trajectories very rapidly due to outgassing near to the sun.
I think that most space agencies know this, which is why there is a fair amount of observation and research into discovering, predicting and hindering such objects. For instance, it has been discovered that only the high density non porous asteroids can be reliably moved with nuclear explosions. Porous low density asteroids and comets will need completely different technologies in order to change their trajectories, such as solar powered lasers to melt parts of them and ion engines to manouver the probes.
Well, looking at the NASA NEO page (http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/risk/2003qq47.html) shows the actual probability of 2003 QQ47 impacting the Earth in 2014 is 1 in 1.754 million, the highest isolated probability. The BBC's figure of 1 in 909000 is the cumulative probability of the asteroid impacting the Earth in the next century.
2003 QQ47 only merits a 1 on the Torino scale. That's the same rating given to random events. For anyone to get upset, you'd be looking for at least a 3 (out of 10) which is a 1% chance of a collision and some regional destruction. Compare this to a 10, which is guaranteed collision and global climatic catastrophe. A 10 event on the Torino scale happens every thousand centuries or so.
Journalists really ought to at least try and understand their subject matter before committing their thoughts to be distributed to the general public. They have a duty of responsibility to ensure that data of limited significance is not represented as some twisted interpretation of a coming apocalypse.
Armageddon is usually associated with Greek, but its root is from Hebrew...
Armageddon = Har Megiddo
Har is "mountain", and Megiddo is an ancient battlefield in ancient Israel or "Canaan".
In addition, Apocalypse comes from Greek roots where, the "calypse" part comes from a root meaning "hidden" and when paired with "apo" becomes "to reveal the hidden". This goes along with the name of the witch who trapped Odysseus on her island for 9-10 years, hiding him from the rest of the world, Calypso
Data on this NEO's future return trips from the nasa site (http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/risk/2003qq47.html):
Date: 2078-03-22.19
Distance in earth radius from center of earth: 0.11
Chance that it won't hit: 0.000
I REALLY HOPE that there's some new measurements coming out soon...
"You worthless post!"
-Shakespeare, 2 Gentlemen of Verona, 1. 1. 147
Actually I'd say it is closer to
1 to (6)^10 (total combinations)
Which is about 1 to 60 million.
Terry Pratchet and British satirist. In his Discworld series of books one of the running jokes is the way that "million to one" chances are almost always a dead certainty.
It's further explained by his theory of "narrative causality" that is a sufficiently good story can impact reality in such a fashion as to bring the conditons of "reality" closer to that in the narrative.
The idea here being, how often in some story do they say "It's a million to one chance, but it just might work," and then, like magic it happens.
Check out;
http://www.ie.lspace.org/
for an idea of what he's all about. He's one of my favorite authors.
-H
"If there's anything more important than my ego, I want it caught and shot now." -- Z. Beeblebrox
The odds are all about uncertainty, but they are only expressed as a probability. The actual probability is either 0 or 1, but given our uncertainty we only know the actual probability with enough accuracy to say that the odds are 909,000 to 1.
(Unlike quanta, celestial mechanics is deterministic.)
Big Brother Bush is doubleplus ungood.
Personally, I'll start worrying when the propability is more than 1% (Torino Scale 3) and increasing with time.
What I want to see, is the effect of a large thermonuclear bomb on an asteroid sample...
Eat at Joe's.
a skilled preacher doesn't need there to be any physical thing to conveince people that the end is upon us.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
see the close approach table here - note the the distances on this chart are typically in single digit earth radii.
See also this data on the NEODyS home page
It means that any space alien or mad scientist with a grudge could give it a nudge to do something nasty.
Note also that the orbit simulations link given above seems to be calculated with old data. showing no collision in 2014
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
"Most appropriate name for a massive rock that will most likely possibly maybe destroy all life on earth:
I think Niven and Pournelle came up with a good one: Lucifer's Hammer.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Well,
... hitting an object wich moves with 30km/s means your ignitiator has only very little time to ignition the nuke before the nuke is crushed ...
... like it is done on earth over japan cities ... has absolutely neglectibel effects in vacuum, because there is no atmosphere and the heat alone will only flash over he asteroids surface as the asteroid moves so fast.
... for a speed change of 1m/s!!!
probabably you should try to calculate how much MASS a asteroid has, and how much momemntum is transfered if one or two nukes HIT it.
a) when HITting, the nuke wont explode
b) ignitioning the nuke close by
The only way to "deflect" an asteroid with nukes is "to land" nukes on it, dig them into it, and blast a hughe portion of the asteroid away with it.
Remember: deflection is a matter of impulse. That is "action equals reaction". To deflect 31 billion tons, that is the mass of the asteroid in question, you need a considerable impulse.
E.G. to change it speed by 1m/s that is only 1/30,00,000 of its current speed, you need to install a "rocket engine" on it which accelerates 1 billion ton to a speed of 900 km/s.
1 billion TONs
Just forget the speed of the gases your engine needs to create, both speed and ejected mass are impossible with our technology.
The only way is o land, to install some solar sails or similar, and to have a very long working machinery on it to adjust its course over years!!
angel'o'sphere
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
But more interestingly -- is 2014 an election year?
you should read everything on the internet as if it had "but I'm probably talking out of my ass" appended to it.
End of the mayan calendar?
"In all of this movement the Maya plotted the evolution of man, the falls in consciousness; they say 2012 will be a raising of consciousness for those who are ready, for those who have done work on the inner self. Thus in 2012 they say it is the great cycle that will close, the zodiacal precisional cycle will be coming to a close, but an even grander cycle will come to a close. "
Maybe 2012 is when we learn we are all phukked.
http://www.levity.com/eschaton/Why2012.html
Designing a 50 attowatt laser that can be focused at astronomical distances (potentially through the atmosphere, but there might not be much atmosphere left in its direct line of fire after a second or two) is left as an exercise to the reader...
You are aware that atto is a very small modifier, not a very large one, right? 50 attowatts is equivalent to 5.0 * (10 ^ -17) watts, or 0.00000000000000005 watts.
Perhaps you meant peta (10^15), exa (10^18), zetta (10^21), or yotta (10^24)?
We have more to fear from the bungling of the incompetent than from the machinations of the wicked.
Actually you can just try to figure out what's going on with 2003 QQ47 using the ORSA software. It is not a simple computation, but you can try anyway. --Lino
That would be tricky, given that the bodies in question orbit the sun.
Mind the Gap
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.