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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... ;-)
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!
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.
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.
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.