Asteroid Impact Simulator Available

crem_d_genes writes "Scientists at the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory have developed an online program that calculates the effects of an asteroid impact that can be customized for several parameters. Results and the frequency of the type of event you have selected are displayed with an explanation of what they mean. A news briefing of the full story is available."

Comments

Good simulation

[ximor_iksivich]

Good simulation, but I think the impact would depend upon which part of the planet the meteor/asteroid strikes as the geographic composition would affect that.

Better yet

[ObviousGuy]

Why not start researching realistic methods of destroying/deflecting these menaces before they get the chance to do their damage on us? If we change our mindset from one of reacting to one of being proactive towards the elimination of these threats, we will not only improve our chances of surviving an asteroid attack, we will also be able to reap the scientific technology breakthroughs that came along with such research.

I'm just a lowly slashbot and don't have much say in how things are run at the upper echelons of government, but I think that it goes without saying that anyone who is serious about eliminating these threats needs to focus energies on 1) identifying suspicious threats, and 2) developing and using technologies that will neutralize those threats.

Re:Better yet

[elviscious]

For starters because most of the life threatening asteroids that we see usually end up being discovered as they fly by us. It seems that most of the time we find out about the asteroids after they have just passed dangerously close to us, or when they are so close we would be screwed.

I would say that it would be more useful to start at the beginning of the problem and search the sky for these first... but I think most of that money was probably redirected to Mars.

Re:Now I can answer that age old question.

[Anonymous Coward]

ummm....if something has velocity = speed of light, then does it not have "undefined" mass? m = m_0/sqrt(1-(v^2/c^2))

Re:Why dosen't the moon get knocked out of orbit?

[Hentai]

Umm... Tycho Crater actually isn't nearly as big as Copernicus crater, and even that didn't "crack" anything more than the moon's outer surface. The moon is really, REALLY big - at the size of planets and moons, anything big enough to deform its general shape won't leave a "crater" so much as just mush the moon into two or more smaller objects, that will each collapse into spheres under their own gravity. So if you're seeing a crater on something the size of a planet, it was WAY too small to actually break it.

Likewise, the earth's orbit hasn't shifted significantly since the moon was formed - which was at least 3 billion years ago. Anything else big enough to shift the earth's orbit would have made another moon. Remember, at these scales, the concept of solididity doesn't work exactly the way you'd think it would.

Re:mist effects make that irrelevant

[cens0r]

Actually the germs from your own digestive tract aren't that harmful to you. It's someone elses you should worry about.