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Russia Plans To Divert Asteroid

Posted by samzenpus on from the Bruce-Willis-approved dept.

CyberDong writes "Roscosmos, Russia's Federal Space Agency, will start working on a project to save planet Earth from a possible collision with Asteroid Apophis, which may happen in 2036. NASA specialists believe that the collision is extremely unlikely. Russian specialists will choose the strategy and then invite the world's leading space agencies to join the project."

9 of 305 comments (clear)

  1. The one thing that'll guarantee an Asteroid strike by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Is the ability to divert asteroids.

    Wonderful weapon, just massive blast damage and no residual radiation.

  2. Uhhhh, excuse me but... by HangingChad · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Roscosmos, Russia's Federal Space Agency, will start working on a project to save planet Earth from a possible collision with Asteroid Apophis

    This would be the same people who just tried to engineer a winter without snow in Russia, with mixed results.

    Now they're going to try diverting an asteroid.

    What could go wrong?

    --
    That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
    1. Re:Uhhhh, excuse me but... by Chris+Burke · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Heh. If it makes you feel any better, orbital dynamics are easier to figure out than the weather since they're pretty much non-chaotic. The error mostly comes from error in measurements of its position over time, so the longer we watch it the more accurate we get, until we get forecasts like a 1-in-300,000 chance of catastrophic meteor impact in 26 years. A bit better than weather prediction, eh? By the time any interceptor actually got close, we'd know the actual trajectory very well. If we were really sure by then it wouldn't hit earth, then we could take as much time as we wanted on the asteroid-diversion mission.

      If in the unlikely event that it looked like it probably would hit earth, at least there'd be something up there to try diverting it. :p

      --

      The enemies of Democracy are
  3. Re:Sounds Fishy by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The Earth has been around for billions of years and in the last several hundred million years, it's been hit by how many bodies large enough to threaten all life?

    Please note that Apophis is nowhere near large enough to "threaten all life".

    Wreck a city? It can do that.

    Make a spectular boom? That too.

    But it's not a threat to "all life". Or even most life. Or even a little bit of life (unless it lands on the last four white rhinos in the wild).

    --

    "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
  4. Re:The one thing that'll guarantee an Asteroid str by Rockoon · · Score: 3, Interesting

    How about a 100% chance of it hitting the moon.

    I think that we can arrange it. I would definitely prefer to have my tax dollar spent making something cool like that happen, rather than spend it on bailouts or diverting it directly into the pockets of the health insurance industry.

    --
    "His name was James Damore."
  5. Re:Sounds Fishy by QuantumG · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Be careful what you say there... you might just debunk the nuclear boogie man. An Apophis sized impact is said to be equivalent to about 1000 H-bombs.

    --
    How we know is more important than what we know.
  6. Re:If it's not broken, why are you fixing it? by jamesh · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Because Apophis is under observation we know exactly what the risk is.

    Aren't some of them a bit unpredictable due to the ejection of matter (eg steam) as they get closer to the sun? Or maybe i've been reading too much SciFi.

    The real risks come from objects we are not currently observing.

    That's certainly true. Wasn't there one that came pretty close recently that we only noticed as it was leaving?

  7. Don't worry about asteroids... by benchbri · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Don't worry about asteroids. What you need to worry about is long-period comets

    Something bumps into another thing in the oort cloud, and sends a comet towards Earth. We'll see it at about the orbit of Saturn (probably found by an amateur), and we'll have about two years -max- to kiss our asses goodbye.

  8. A little game theory... by js_sebastian · · Score: 3, Interesting

    NO, there is a bigger chance to be hit by an asteroid than to win a lottery.

    Is there really? Estimates of this based on historical data would have us hit by an asteroid big enough to make dinosaurs go extinct once every... 70 million years (or so, look it up if you want correct numbers). So it is perhaps about as likely to be hit by one in a given year as a given ticket winning the lottery (depending on how big a lottery). However, if we assume that such an asteroid would kill 7 billion people if it did hit, we can also say that catastrophic asteroid impact kills on average 100 people a year... not a highly impressive number, probably less people than are killed by flying debris http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0EY86At7qs each year, but still pretty high considering that there is hardly any historical record of a man being killed by an asteroid impact.