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NASA-ESA Project Will Shoot an Asteroid To See What Happens
astroengine writes What better way to understand how to deflect an incoming asteroid than to smash into one to see what happens? This may sound like the storyline to a certain science fiction movie involving a team of oil drillers, but this is science fact, and Europe has started planning a mission to map a small target asteroid that NASA will attempt to shoot with a speeding spacecraft, no nukes required. As the first half of the joint Asteroid Impact & Deflection Assessment mission, the European Space Agency this month has started planning for the launch of its Asteroid Impact Mission (AIM) in October 2020. AIM's target will be the binary asteroid system of Didymos, which is composed of a main 800 meter-wide hunk of space rock circled by a smaller 170 meter-wide asteroid informally known as "Didymoon." It's the smaller asteroid that the joint NASA/ESA mission is interested in bullying.
Why am I imagining "hey, y'all, watch this!"?
Surely the effect of an impact could be simulated on a computer. I feel like the real benefit of this is the real life experience bringing a project like this from concept to fruition.
You never know.
First the Chinese with their ASAT test that polluted LowEarthOrbit with thousands of fragments. Now the europeans want to zap a asteroidal moon! when will the madness stop?
(/humor) for the slow witted...
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
I was getting tired of all the April Fools crap yesterday, but I guess this is serious.
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Looks like a very difficult project. The people involved will have to have a very special skill set.
Might I suggest some training videos?.
Watch these geniuses fragment the thing, one or more of which winds up getting deflected and hitting Earth. Your tax dollars at work!
I'm sure the lifeforms on that asteroid will be very upset by this unprovoked act of aggression. There is no doubt that their leaders will retaliate by sending their biggest asteroid in a collision course with earth.
Beware of the Law of Unintended Consequences! "Oh, we hit the astroid! Great! Oops, it is not heading directly to Earth! Doh!"...
If you're going to start shooting at asteroids, make sure you have a viable short-range ship-teleportation device available first.
When I was a kid, I would normally miss the blockbuster movies because they would be rated either PG or R. Then I would wait for the cheap Italian version featuring rather well known actors who looked like they could pull off the lead, and maybe make it a considerable hit in 3rd World countries. Up to know I still find myself commenting poor man's Jason Statham or poor man's Bruce Willis
The hunt is on for Poor man's Ben Affleck!
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
NASA and ESA plan a project together... NASA then pulls out due to "funding cutbacks" leaving ESA in the shit and then does a u-turn and decides to do it alone
...it will shoot back.
Personally I think it is a bad idea to shoot at asteroids. The last thing we need is a bunch of kilometer-sized rocks gunning for us. Sending them flowers and candy might be a better idea.
rgb
Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. --- Bertrand Russell.
I mean, unless you hit it with something really massive, or something going REALLY fast... pretty much nothing. What am I missing?
If we have a good estimate of the mass of the asteroid and we know the mass and speed of our projectile, what is the mystery?
This unprovoked attack on an asteroid may end up being more trouble than it's worse. We could end up bogged down in an endless conflict with it.
---- The above post was generated by the Turing Institute. Maybe.
If it moves, shoot it.
How long until some liberal environmentalist moonbat comes crawling out of the woodwork and sobs about the plight of our suffering 'asteroid-americans' whom we send unprovoked attacks against.
Scientists all thought it was a clever idea to shoot at an asteroid... until the asteroid started shooting back!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
"I cast magic missile at the darkness!"
"Unheard of means only it's undreamed of yet,
Impossible means not yet done." ~~ Julia Ecklar
It will defend itself.
The Europeans go in trepidatiously, carefully measuring things, trying to understand the asteroid. A couple months later the US flies in fast and hot, and blows everything up, mission over. As an American, I love it.
ESA? And I though 'shoot and watch what's happening' was only a US thingie.
is not amused
(many times)
What could possibly go wrong?
It will split into two smaller, faster-moving ones, each of which when shot will split into two tiny, very fast ones. The tiny ones will disappear when shot.
Also, a flying saucer will show up from time to time.
From the asteroid's point of view the enemies gates are down.
The article state the sizes of the objects and the orbit of one round the other. gravity AFAIK tends to remain directly proportional to mass throughout the universe. We know *exactly* what the mass is and since we know the size, we know the density; high school physics stuff. Even if we didn't, this won't tell us a thing about the other 8.6 trillion [undemolished] asteroids. What if it knocks this shit out of orbit and it no longer influences something else which no longer influences something else and blooey the whole fucking Khyber-belt goes sun-bound.
A mission this pointless can only be the child of a "use-it-or-lose-it" budget mentality.
Either that, or they're trying to unleash Mothra.
This kind of screwing around is exactly how Zod gets out of the Phantom Zone, you know...
And it breaks off a piece that hurtles towards Las Vegas and is large enough to spell doom but too small to shoot. Goodbye, mon amies.
But few come to fruition.
Just to watch it die
This is exactly why we need concealed carry laws. Asteroids have a right to defend themselves.
What kind of payload will this speeding spacecraft have?
... until our new alien overlords fire back. Damn risk takers at NASA...
In God we trust, all others require data.
Buenos Aires was just payback.
My... mother lives in Didymos.
This is intriguing.
If we were ever to start space travel, it would be good to know that the first asteroid we come across won't completely destroy the journey.
It also makes me wonder how we fly things to other planets without ever running into them.
The new data would be good for humanity to have.
I'm pretty uneducated on the whole topic, but it does spark a number of questions that I never bothered to ask before.
For science ! PEWPEW !