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Asteroid 2004 MN4 May Hit Earth After All
ControlFreal writes "Asteroid 2004 MN4 was introduced earlier on Slashdot, and although scientists are now fairly certain that is will miss earth on April 13th, 2029, the modification to its orbit caused by Earth's gravity may still cause an impact one or a couple of orbits further down the road, the Times reports; the impact probabilities in 2035, 2036 of 2037 will not be known until the exact modification to its orbit is known; in 2029, that is. By then it may be too late for effective counter-measures.
An impact would cause an energy release equivalent to about 1 Gigaton of TNT (~4e+18 Joule), and while that won't cause a massive extinction event, it causes widespread devastation.
More info on 2004 MN4 can be found here and here."
in 2029, that is. By then it may be too late for effective counter-measures.
Bull. 2029 to 2035 gives us ~6 years to prepare. If the asteroid actually posed clear and present danger, then a crash program to build an interceptor could be accomplished. With apologies to Pournelle and Niven (warning, associates link), the catch-22 is that we would have to give up our fear of the Orion. Using standard building practices + what we know of advanced hydrogen bomb design, we could potentially launch an Orion within three years. The options would be to either send it on an unmanned kinetic-impact course with the asteroid, or to send a team ala "Armageddon" (or some other lame stop-the-asteroid movie) to manually plant and detonate the charges.
If I'm reading the info correctly, the asteroid is a mere 46 gigatonnes. So as long as we get to it fast enough, there shouldn't be any difficulty in nudging it into a higher orbit. Of course, we may only be able to buy some time in the short term. Orbital mechanics is tricky, and not as simple as just "pushing" the asteroid out of the way. We may actually have to push it toward earth to slingshot it into a more acceptable trajectory.
One way or another, we have the tech. It's just scary as all hell to behold, and in a crash program would almost certainly add a small amount to the nuclear pollution that already exists on our planet. But if it's a choice between three random deaths from cancer or millions dead from a massive impact, I think the choice is fairly clear. Especially when the former is theoretical and the later is firm.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
~~Don't wanna close my eyes. Don't wanna fall asleep. 'Cause I'd miss you, baby. And I don't wanna miss a thing. Cause even when I dream of you The sweetest dream would never do. I'd still miss you, baby. And I don't wanna miss a thing~~~
I knew the Republicans were lying about there being a Social Security crisis in 75 years. Now I don't have to worry about it. Whew.
19th January 2038 half of us will be dead! Who needs to count the seconds after
that?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I have no way of knowing, but at the rate technology is going right now, we'll probably have something capable of blowing the thing into gravel by 2035. Or at least something that we can knock it out of the way with.
I can't even imagine what things will be like in another 30 years...I mean, if in 1915 you told someone that in 30 years a bomb would be built powerful enough to flatten a small city, they'd laugh at you.
Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
The Asian earthquake was some magnitudes greater than that. Of course it's all in how the energy is dissipated.
Transcend Humanity. Please.
Lets have Microsoft patent asteriod collisons and then we'll send all the lawyers after the asteriod to deliver a cease and desist order. Worst case scenario is that we're out a few lawyers.
I traded all my mod points for these magic beans.
The dinosaurs became extinct because they didn't have a space program.
- Larry Niven
Wouldn't it be funny if they did have a space program and just haven't bothered coming back?
Lets put them on the same ship as the hairdressers and telephone sanitizers.
Fight Spammers!
I wonder if people will build more bunkers. I know a person who owns a house, and there is a bunker in the back yard, from the days of a USSR nuclear strike threat (Back in the 70's and early 80's the drill for a nuclear strike was to climb under the desk in the school). It looks kinda flimsy to me, I am guessing the salesperson was real good. It looks more like a shed that is half way in the ground.
But, if someone wanted to make a good bunker, not just to ease the mind, but something to survive in, how deep would it need to be? I live on flat land, so I can not tunnle into a mountain, which I would assume to be the best choice. What is needed for a good oxygen supply, can you generate your own, or do you need an exhaust? How long would you need to stay underground, and where would you store the water and food? And would you have more than one exit out of the bunker, in case one side suffers damage and is burried under?
I think it would be cool to have a series of bunkers, with some pre-picked neighbors, people you trust. Have 7 or 8 bunkers, maybe a mile apart, each one acting as a node. The chances for survival would increase, and the time would pass quicker.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
In general terms, having your collective dna stuck at the bottom of a gravity well relying on the "stability" of a single biosphere is not a a good long term policy.
If we don't have time for effective preparations, where do I donate toward the ineffective preparations?
I, for one, want a massive Wile E. Coyote-style flag to pop out of the Earth immediately before the asteroid hits. Preferably reading "Yipe!"
"Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the drug store, but that's just peanuts to space."
As a geek, you ought to be ashamed that you even suggested that a tiny little rock would take out dozens of satellites. I can see how an English major or a Journalist could make that mistake, but you are on SLASHDOT here, and you should know some basic things about the space and how big it is.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
without some new propulsion technology i doubt even by 2029 we will have this option.
New propulsion technology? You mean like Nuclear Pulse, Nuclear Thermal (also in Trimodal for low atmospheric work), Nuclear Salt Water, M2P2, and hundreds of other mature, semi-mature, or proposed methods that we haven't used because it's "too damn expensive to get off this rock"?
Propulsion is *not* the problem.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
That was done on Voyager. It wasn't funny at all.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
Hope it hits LA, we could whip out the RIAA and MPAA in one hit!
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
--
I don't know about you but with these numbers from NASA I'm getting ready to move to Mars.
I'm a virgo and on Slashdot. Coincidence? Yes.
I can't remember who the artist was. Sad.
When humanity is staring down the barrel of an asteroid strike, then these treaties will probably not be such a big deal...
Besides, whenever has our beloved President ever let a treaty stand in his way?
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
sheesh, it's funny people, Funny!
/. stories are most of the reason I read comments. A real knee-slapper deservers a bit of karma methinks :)
I think the reason some Funny posts get modded Insightful, Informative, Whatever is because starting sometime ago Funny mods no longer improve your karma. Thus to counteract, if a post already has a few Funny mods, a moderator might mod it Informative to boost the poster's karma a bit.
Makes some sense to me. After all, Funny comments in
"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
/)
Notorious to whom? Short compared to attention spans of what other species? Compared with animals? Do dogs and cats sit around behind our backs and say shit like this:
Dog: mankind has such a short attention span
Cat: tell me about it. me and my feline brethren have been working on catching mice for thousands of years. Some of our members have been known to study a mote of dust for upwards of 4 hours
Dog: I hear you - it's almost as if mankind is famous for having a short attentions spam. Infamous you might say. Heck, I'd go so far as to say they are notoriously short attentioned - wait, where's my tail? Did you seem my tail?
Or maybe you're communicating with aliens.
XML causes global warming.
I posted this to my local SF group boards a while back. Hope you like it:
Several guys in the group work for Lockheed and want it on a T-shirt.
Cheers,
I.V.
"These laws they're passing won't even compile anymore, let alone execute." - anon
NOT EARTH, that's where I keep all my stuff!!!
There will be no eulogy. Humanity will die quickly.
Denial will reign, as no preparations are done to evacuate the planet. Some will say there is no way to evacuate everyone. Others will say there's nowhere else to go. The real thinkers will know, if we had started years ago, we would have had a chance.
Most will die from the intial impact.
The impact will crack the planet's crust, resulting in volcanos, earthquakes, and tsunamis, which continue for years.
Many will die due to the dependance on transportation systems, or more specifically the failure of them.
A very few will survive in the cold dust and ash filled atmosphere, through the shaking ground, and giant destroying the costal areas. They will survive for many months on their preserved food reserves, and filtered air. Alone, they will consider themselves the lucky ones.
In the end, none will survive.
Many millennia later, other civilizations will have grown in far outlying areas of the universe. They will look at the dry and barren planet, covered by rocks and dirt, and say "nothing could have ever lived here. It's always been a dead planet"
Eventually, despite taunts, archeologists will find disputed traces of life on the planet. Some artifacts will be found. They will be found frozen in the ice of the polar ice caps, or burried in the sands of the vast deserts. Still others will be below hundreds of feet of dirt, on the iced tops of frozen oceans.
The artifacts will be carefully examined for many years. There will be many theories to what they are, and what the markings may mean. Could there have been life on this far distant planet? Could a civilization have thrived in this desolate place? Maybe these creatures could be a clue to our ancestory?
In the end, their markings will be considered random discolorations. The artifacts will be labeled as "common rocks", and thoughtfully put into storage well away from public sight.
No, as egotistical as we are, there will ne eulogy. There will be no memory of anything we've accomplished. We will be part of the dust on a barren planet, spinning slowly around a dying star.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
The Overrateed/Underrated mods are a little interesting.
:).
If you read the Mod FAQ about them (last bullet) you'll see that you can get some odd (but unlikely I guess) combos like +5 Flamebait (that would be cool though
Also, and I don't know this for fact but I've seen others discuss it, if you mod using Under/Overrated too much, you may eventually be given fewer/no mod points. The reason being is that Under/Overrated mods cannot be metamoderated so you get trolls with mod points using them to mod people down without valid reason (political, whatever). There's some big discussions about users getting hit by tons of Overrated mods because they have enough Foes with mod points. Basically there's no way to "balance out" Under/Overrated mods.
Anyone know more about this?
"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
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