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Chance for a Tunguska Sized Impact on Mars
Multiple users have written to tell us of an LA Times report that an asteroid may hit Mars on January 30th. The asteroid is roughly 160 feet across, and JPL-based researchers say that it will have a 1-in-75 chance of striking Mars. Those odds are very high for this type of event, and scientists are hoping to witness an impact of a similar scope to the Tunguska disaster. From the LA Times:
"Because scientists have never observed an asteroid impact -- the closest thing being the 1994 collision of comet Shoemaker-Levy with Jupiter -- such a collision on Mars would produce a 'scientific bonanza,' Chesley said."
It'll probably take something as dramatic as a direct hit from a meteorite to finish Spirit or Opportunity off.
informed the UAC base on Mars of the impending DOOM that is heading there way?
Um, so first a huge collection of rocks smacks into Jupiter, now another may hit Mars, and they're excited?
They sound awfully like ranging shots to me, I'm more inclined to get Venus to light the third cigarette and then be wery, wery, qwiet...
If it does hit or in some other way cloud the atmosphere of Mars, would this put the brakes on current and planned future studies of the planet?
A few years of darkened skies could finish off the rovers, or require better orbiting surveillance equipment, no?
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Caesar si viveret, ad remum dareris.
We'd be talking about it for decades. It might actually wake up some people to the NEA threat to our own planet. It might have a devastating and instant effect on the atmosphere of Mars.. which could actually make the planet a little warmer and a little more hospitable.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Even if it misses it should still be a little interesting. If it comes that close, its orbit will be greatly affected, observing the results should be useful?
...if an Tunguska-sized impact occurs on the side of the planet we can't see, did it really happen at all?
-Rob
Biblical fiscal responsibility
If the asteroid does hit the impact site would probably make for a good rover mission. Fresh samples of long buried rock without the extra hassle of having to dig it up!
Murphey's fighting Occam, and we're in the stands.
How long would it take to get to the impact site, bearing in mind that it travels at an average speed of 1cm per second, and that dust in the atmosphere from the impact will probably drastically reduce it's recharge ability?
I think you'd get there quicker by launching another rover mission!!
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
Get the cameras rolling, I'm sure it'll be a better impact then the Beagle meteorite simulation of a few years ago.
:-)
(I do feel bad for poking fun at Beagle, many people much smarter then me put a lot of work into that probe.)
The received wisdom used to be that the meteorite, that caused the disaster in Tunguska, exploded above the surface of the earth. It entered the atmosphere at a relatively shallow angle and heated up much more than it would have if it had come straight down. The result was that a long relatively narrow area of forest was knocked down and there was no impact crater.
On Mars, the atmosphere is much less dense than that of the earth. The meteor in question is large. If it hits Mars, it will reach the surface, it won't vaporize in the atmosphere. The result will be much more like other impacts on the earth that did leave craters. In that light, the comparison with Tunguska doesn't make much sense. I don't know where Steve Chesley got his information on the size of the rock that exploded over Siberia but I bet it wasn't 160 feet across. Something that size would make it to the Earth's surface.
"Disaster" is a pretty hypy label for an event which led to no known loss of human life or property, and caused no significant environmental damage (yes, a lot of trees fell and some wildlife may have died, but it's not like it destroyed an ecosystem or led to an extinction of any species).
Most modern industrial projects are a bigger "disaster" in this sense than Tunguska. The event should be referred to as "phenomenon", or maybe just a "boom", but not a "disaster".
I'll bet they are. Because we have this nice dense atmosphere to sustain our breathing, we tend to forget that mars has only 2 or 3% of the surface air pressure to heat and absorb energy from an incoming rock like we have. The damage will be from a direct surface hit at the rocks full speed and should be visible if it hits on our side of mars, and it will no doubt toss up a few megatons of ejecta, which due to the speed of the wind, will take a while to settle. That does have the possibility of finishing off the rovers. There is a slim chance some of the ejecta may even make it to earth and be found on the antarctic snow eventually, giving us a few more samples of our neighbor to study.
:)
If it hits where we can see it, it should be quite a show and I hope they have a good number of our telescopes, even Hubble, recording like crazy.
I guess we'll find out January 30th. But if its on the far side, we may have to do before and after photo comparisons to find the crater once the dust has settled, and that won't be near as informative as a near side hit would be.
Humm, recently the chinese were accused of doctoring a moon photo. Makes me wonder if the moved crater might in fact be a new one?
--
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
10) there is no 10, but it sounded like a nice number
-- Wichert Akkerman
That's the funny thing about mega-events in chaotic systems, you never know what might happen.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Except that the whole "nuclear winter" thing works by increasing the albedo of the planet. Venus is under constant, DEEP (the tropopause is at around 65km up) cloud cover already. Greenhouse effects massively outweigh the cooling from cloud cover.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
Prime Directive and all that.
Genesis 1:32 And God typed
It just occurred to me that the astronomer being quoted might not have been referring to an occultation at all. That's a pretty rare event for any given asteroid. It's possible that the astronomer was referring to needing to wait for the bright moon to get out of the sky at the same time the asteroid is up, which can take a week or more, depending on its current phase. The extra extinction caused by a bright moon might be enough to prevent the detailed observations needed to get a good orbital fix on the asteroid. This still doesn't excuse the lousy science reporting, which flat-out declared the asteroid was behind the moon, and implied it would remain there for two weeks.
*** PonderIf the picture's upside-down and the rover's not going anywhere, it was a big one.
Ack ack ack ack, ack-ack ack ack-ack.
Ack, ack ACK-ack-ack, ack-ack ack-ack ack. Ack ack, ack-ack-ack-ack, ack ack ack.
Ack ack,
Ack-ack Ack-ack-ack-ack.
The nuclear winter is a concept that works only on Earth due to our unique atmosphere which lets a bit of sunlight in and prevents a bit of that from radiating out, thus warming our planet. If our atmosphere grew a bit more dusty, we'd reflect more sunlight and become colder.
You cannot apply this concept to Mars, which has no greenhouse effect in the first place. Its surface reflects most of the sunlight already, so reflective dust in its thin atmosphere would make no difference. You also can't apply it to Venus, which is a greenhouse. Its atmosphere is already highly reflective, and it is only as hot as it is because the tiny amount of sunlight it absorbs is prevented from escaping.
This isn't a big impactor. It won't cause any serious global effects, on Mars, Venus or Earth.
That's where Phobos and Deimos came from as well.
Maybe they get a baby brother for Christmas!
-Styopa