Slashdot Mirror
Asteroid 4179 Toutatis Will Miss Earth, This Time
EtherAlchemist writes "National Geographic News reports in this story that a giant, peanut shaped asteroid known as 4179 Toutatis will pass within 1 million miles of Earth on Weds, the 29th. When it does, it will be the closest any known object of this size (3 miles) has passed near Earth in this century. No worry about impact yet, it should pose no threat until at least 2562. An interesting note: the asteroid believed to have caused Earth's biggest mass extinction is thought to have been between 3.7 and 7.5 miles as reported here in 2001." 2004 FU162 came closer, but is a much smaller object.
I'm getting kind of sick of this type of story. It seems like every few months their are stories released about some space object coming close to earth and 'just barely missing'.
Though I am curious to know if their is an official plan for countering a colliding asteriod? What would our options be realistically if an asteriod going to impact in a matter of months?
I'll make you a deal. You pray to God for help and I'll stop the moment he shows up.
Method 1 is novel, but probably wouldn't produce enough of a course change to matter... we'd still die (remember we're unlikely to spot an asteroid until it's way too a late for minor course changes to make a difference).
Method 2 plain wouldn't work. Asteroids aren't solid objects so they can absorb a lot of shock, plus if you managed to break it up all the little bits would have the same total velocity as the original asteroid... death by a thousand cuts.
That is the meaning of the grandparent post.
You do realise surely that 1000 small asteroids is a lot better than 1 large asteroid, right? The effect of 1000 small chunks would be greatly reduced due to them burning up faster while descending through the atmosphere. Same total velocity my ass, i'm all up for air resistance.
we would regard it as "none of our problem", but the technology would continue to evolve.
in couple of generations people would start making up some plans to escape from the disaster.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Why?
Because a billion tons of gravel travelling at 25,000 miles per hour is just as deadly as a billion ton chunk of rock travelling at 25,000 miles per hour. It's not the rock itself that's the problem. It's the kinetic energy from the object's mass that's the problem. Gravel - rock - it's all the same at 25,000 miles per hour...
The only way a nuke really would work would be if it were small enough to nudge it off course, wihich would mean getting a BIG lead time on it. and that assumes that the asteroid is solid. It seems a lot of them aren't all thet well put together and a nuke would only turn the bullet/asteroid into a shotgun blast, per my previous description.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Even if such an object hit Earth, I seriously doubt that it would lead to human extinction. In fact, it probably won't even kill as many people as the tens, or possibly even hundreds, of millions we have killed during the 20th century in two world wars, many other wars, and persistent indifference to humanitarian crises of famine or disease. This may be a young crowd, but those of us old enough who have grown up during the heat of the cold war will probably have less to worry about from a meteor hitting than all those tens of thousands of ICBM the USA and USSR seemed willing to unleash on each other and everyone at a very short notice.
Many species survived many mass extinction events, and, ironically and in fact, many of such species have been, or are being, driven to extinction by none other than us. Soon we will have successfully driven biodiversity to the minimum we have allowed to survive because we want it, such as dairy and poultry farms, and pets.
I am willing to bet that the last surviving species on Earth will be humans and microbes.
If you blow up an asteroid of some arbitrary tonnage, say, a nice round billion tons, the planet is STILL fucked. Why?
Simple, and I repeat, a billion tons of gravel is still a billion tons of rock. Sure: there is more surface area and greater heating, BUT - all you have done is taken a catastrophic impact event of a billion tons of rock hitting several quintillion tons of rock (earth) into a billion tons of rock hitting a few million tons of air. At 25,000 mph, the kinetic energy of a billion tons of gravel will get converted directly into heat. So instead of a giant pinpoint nuke going off, it would turn a larger area of the planet into something like a broiler set on HIGH, and this heat event would last quite a long time, as anything that can burn will burn (explosively). Net effect: we all die.
Also: hitting it with a nuke ASSUMES it will *ALL* be reduced to gravel, and this isn't necessarily true. Many asteroids aren't that well put together, and there is a greater chance that by setting off a nuke on an asteroid, instead of a billion ton rock hitting in one spot, you could as easily end up with, say, four 200 million ton rocks all plowing into roughly the same little patch on earth AND 200 million tons of sand, gravel, frozen gasses, and other crap to turn the place into the solar system's biggest hibachi.
I can assure you what I speak is true - IANAAP (I am not an astrophysicist) but I have friends who are, and they all tell me the exact same thing:
blowing it up only works in (bad) hollywood movies.
You can't live outside the law of the conservation of mass and energy. A billion (or more) tons of rock is still a billion tons of rock, and when it's travelling at 25,000 miles per hour, it'll blow through 100 miles of atmosphere in about (but not a lot more) than a quarter of a second. BOOM. Game Over.
So, to re-iterate for the jillionth time:
BLOWING UP AN ASTEROID REALLY DOESN'T WORK. PERIOD. REALLY.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.