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City-Sized Asteroid to Pass Earth This Fall
FiniteLoop sends a collection of links about a city-sized asteroid named Toutatis which will approach - but miss - Earth this September. MSNBC also has a story, and JPL and the Near Earth Object program have more information.
"The only thing us Gauls have to fear is the sky falling on our heads"
A little under 5 square miles, according to the article. Culver City, California Alma, Texas Lexington, South Carolina Pine Ridge, South Carolina Lake Worth, Florida In other words, a small city.
Toutatis is about 2.9 miles long and 1.5 miles wide (4.6 by 2.4 kilometers).
So its probably closer in size to downtown Rose Bud, Arkansas (certainly excluding the busteling suburban Rose Bud outlying areas)
Here's to finally giving Bush his exit strategy in November
Asterix and Obelix fans may recall that Toutatis, a name frequently invoked by those indomitable Gauls, is in fact the ancient French god of war, growth and prosperity.
Invoking Toutatis during battle was supposed to bring about certain victory for the pre-Christian French warriors. Which is why it is such an appropriate moniker for a comet that appears just once every 500 years... ;-)
Actually, it appears every 4 years.
01000001 01011001 01000010 01000001 01000010 01010100 01010101
Isn't there enough mass here to affect the tides? 2.9 miles long and 1.5 miles wide is quite a bit of area, especially if it's condensed.
Quick order of magnitude calculation: Radius ~10^3 times smaller than moon -> ~10^9 times smaller mass than moon if comparable material.
Also closest distance is 4 times greater than moon and gravity scales as distance squared so the tidal affects of this thing ought to be of the order 10^-10 times as strong as those from the moon - in other words impossible to notice.
Tor
I'm afraid I couldn't find the path files (3ds model is available though) for this body. However, Celestia 1.3.2 is currently in beta testing, and it now has support for JPL's "Ephemeris" orbital data that might be usable instead of Celestia's .xyz trajectories. There seem to be some interesting stuff in a Google search. Maybe you can download 1.3.2 (I could only find a Windows binary) and read up / ask at the Celestia forums for more help about where to get Ephemeris data, and how to use it.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
After posting this, I found a page that might be a start... :-)
http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/eph
Click "Target Body" and enter "Toutatis". The body will be found, and you can then request the data. The question is what (if any) options to enable for it, etc...
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
The fact of the matter is that there are Big Freekin' Rocks falling out of the sky, and there are going to be more of them, and bigger ones, as the next few years progress. Cyclical catastrophe is part of life on Earth.
But don't sweat it. You live many lives, so the fact that this one might end in a big ball of fire shouldn't worry you too much. Enjoy the show.
-FL
Celestia doesn't really do anything with orbital mechanics. You just click and zoop around. It's very pretty though.
DNA just wants to be free...
Thermal Radiation:
Time for maximum radiation:
3.29 seconds after impact
Visible fireball radius:
8.4 km = 5.2 miles
The fireball appears 2.4 times larger than the sun
Thermal Exposure:
1.19 x 105 Joules/m2
Duration of Irradiation:
77 seconds
Radiant flux (relative to the sun):
1.5
Seismic Effects:
The major seismic shaking will arrive at approximately 161.0 seconds.
Richter Scale Magnitude: 9.1 (This is greater than any shaking in recorded history)
Mercalli Scale Intensity at a distance of 805 km: IV. Hanging objects swing. Vibration like passing of heavy trucks; or sensation of a jolt like a heavy ball striking the walls. Standing motor cars rock. Windows, dishes, doors rattle. Glasses clink. Crockery clashes. In the upper range of IV wooden walls and frame creak.
V. Felt outdoors; direction estimated. Sleepers wakened. Liquids disturbed, some spilled. Small unstable objects displaced or upset. Doors swing, close, open. Shutters, pictures move. Pendulum clocks stop, start, change rate.
Ejecta:
The ejecta will arrive approximately 436.0 seconds after the impact.
Average Ejecta Thickness:
2.7 cm = 1.04 inches
Mean Fragment Diameter:
1.4 mm = 0.0561 inches
Air Blast:
The air blast will arrive at approximately 2683.3 seconds.
Peak Overpressure:
39729.6 Pa = 0.3973 bars = 5.6416 psi
Max wind velocity:
73.5 m/s = 164.5 mph Sound Intensity:
92 dB (May cause ear pain)
Damage Description:
Wood frame buildings will almost completely collapse. Glass windows will shatter. Up to 90 percent of trees blown down; remainder stripped of branches and leaves.
So: In a nut shell:
the asteroid smacks LA. A great cheer is heard round the world - that idoitic show Friends is finally off the air, and now nature is here to make sure it never sees re-runs. A fitting punishment, much like that space byport problem meted out for Really Bad Poetry. So, all in all, the erasure of Los Angeles isn't such a bad thing, in the greater scheme of things - no more Meg Ryan movies, Bruce and Demi vapourised - aaaah - not so bad at all!
The problem is:
on the horizon would be a largish fireball, and things here in SF would get really warm for about a minute or two. Then 2 minutes and 41 seconds later, an earthquake hits, the likes of which makes 1906 look like a joyride. Then about 5 and a half minutes later gravel comes flying out of the sky at supersonic speed. Then about 45 minutes later the wind hits at 165 miles per hour, pretty much scouring the bay area of anything left alive.
So, while it would completely wipe LA off the map (YAY!!!) and leave a crater 35 miles wide ( |{3vv|_ !!! ) it will first lightly toast (boo!) then pulverise with hypersonic gravel (EEEK!!) then shake to pieces (Bad. Reeeally Bad) and then blow away (Suckage!) the Bay Area.
Therefore, it is incumbent on the Bay Area to find a way to stop such a rock from hitting the earth, because, as we all know, such disasters only hit two cities: Tokyo and LA. And given that Tokyo is being continuously reduced to rubble by those giant lizards, Moths and Turtles, it's the rocks we have to watch out for.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
(4179) Toutatis 2453278.07 2004 Sept.29.57 0.01036 8 oppositions, 1988-2000 MPO 6175 (4179) Toutatis
From this link.
The parent page has many links of interest.
Well, let's see. (Apologies for rough math!)
.0000000000001 meters per second per second - and even for a rock that big, that's only about half a newton/meter of force - that's *nothing*, a car engine can do a couple of hundred Newton/meters.
It's roughly a cylinder 2.9 miles long x 1.5 miles in cross-sectional diameter. That's a volume of about 21 cubic kilometers...21 giga-cubic-meters. A cubic meter of basalt rock weighs in at 2800kg under earth gravity...so we are up to something like 5.5 tera-newtons of mass.
We know that:
Force = mass x accelleration
dist = accelleration x time x time / 2
What saves you when you are trying to move something like this is that 'time-squared' term. Doubling the time over which you push on the rock quadruples the distance you finally move it by. This means that a tiny accelleration applied over a long time is the way to go (not a multi-megaton nuclear blast applied over a millisecond).
The rock has a huge mass - but the force you need is the mass times the accelleration - so that tiny accelleration times that huge mass gets you into the realm of reasonably small forces...but you have to plan on applying them for many YEARS.
To deflect this rock by a couple of earth radii, (say 10,000 km) over 100 years, needs a tiny (but continuous) accelleration of
So - the most gentle of pushes - if applied over a 100 years is plenty.
This also eliminates any risk of smashing it to bits - and gives you plenty of time to correct any mistakes, refuel your motor, etc.
Of course if you leave it until the final year before impact before you act, you need 10,000 times as much power (still do-able with enough 'bolt-on' rockets I think - but maybe you could break it up with that much force).
If you let the politicians argue about who'se going to pay for it until a month before impact, you need a million times as much power and it's obviously too late.
That's why we need LOTS of notice if one of these brutes coming close. 600 years is enough - but I'd definitely get very nervous if it was only 100 years away.
www.sjbaker.org
For Celestia I can't say, but you can get ephemerides for most astronomy programs from http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/MPEph/MPEph.html . Just type Toutatis into the big box near the top, pick your program down below, and click on Get ephemerides.
You really need to check the facts before you say things like this. Orbital velocities are in the range of 17,000 mph, and solar system escape is on the order of 28,000 mph. These numbers are close, and I'm to lazy right now to dig up exact numbers, but, google will find it for you if you want to split the hairs. Since the asteroid in question is on a solar orbit, by definition, it's velocity will be at/below 28,000 mph. Now do some simple math.
28,000 mph divided by 3600 sec/hr = 7.7 miles per second.
Atmosphere is generally given to be 60 miles deep.
60 miles divided by 7.7 miles/second = 7.79 seconds
Soo, in the worst case, velocities approaching solar system escape, and a vertical impact, transition time from atmosphere entry to surface impact (ignoring the friction and deceleration from the atmospheric entry) will be AT LEAST 7.79 seconds. A trajectory that is not vertical will increase that time in atmosphere. To achieve your 1 second from entry interface to impact, the item would have to be travelling on the order of 216,000 mph, and arrive on a perfectly vertical trajectory. This combination of trajectory and velocity will pretty much rule out any early detection of such a beast incoming.
As for nuclear missle launch, the rockets attached to nuclear missles do not have enough power to escape earths atmosphere
Again, quite wrong. Ballistic misslies RELY on escaping the atmosphere to achieve ballistic trajectories. What they dont do, is achieve orbit, because that wont result in 'dropping on the target'. Most are capable of achieving orbit by simply lightening the payload.
weighs in at 2800kg under earth gravity ?
5.5 tera-newtons of mass ?
half a newton/meter of force ?
car engine doing a couple of hundred Newton/meters ?
weight (a mass under acceleration) is measured in Newton (kg.m/s/s, not kg)
mass in kg (not in newton)
force in Newton (not in newton/meter)
torque in Nm (Newton times meter, not Newtons per meter)
Explain what the torque of a car engine has to do with moving an asteroid, unless you have found a place to stand on and use Archimedes' lever ?
Flourescent (adj): smelling like ground wheat.
The reply to your comment is right.
Lets say the 7.7 miles/sec for the asteroid hits earth along its orbit(I don't know the validity of this, but giving the benefit of the doubt). Earth is traveling at around 18.2 miles/sec. That makes the distance between them shrink at about 27 miles per second. So it is more like 2 seconds to break the atmosphere and hit earth, but it is more likely not to actually make contact. It would probably just burn the earth for miles.
This is assuming that it is morning at ground zero of the impact site, a maximum
Interesting Link
It's all good.