Nasa could land probe on asteroid hurtling towards Earth
39 replies, posted
[QUOTE=bravehat;23960132]Why do people think this would work? :byodood:
Now you have a lovely shower of slightly smaller chunks flying at you even faster.[/QUOTE]
Those smaller bits will burn in the atmosphere.
[QUOTE=Swilly;23966423]Those smaller bits will burn in the atmosphere.[/QUOTE]
No. All the debris would have to be smaller than around 10 metres across for this to happen. Blowing it up with a nuke massively increases the area of damage to the Earth's surface.
Also, all those chunks smaller than 10 metres, but bigger than a pebble will explode in the air and rain down at terminal velocity, still causing damage.
Blowing it up with a nuke turns it into buckshot.
[QUOTE=petieng;23967411]No. All the debris would have to be smaller than around 10 metres across for this to happen. Blowing it up with a nuke massively increases the area of damage to the Earth's surface.
Also, all those chunks smaller than 10 metres, but bigger than a pebble will explode in the air and rain down at terminal velocity, still causing damage.
Blowing it up with a nuke turns it into buckshot.[/QUOTE]
Better than getting hit by a shell of artillery.
[QUOTE=bravehat;23961522]You seem to be under the impression that these will be small chunks.
They won't be.
If it's big enough to pose a threat to the earth then here's what will happen if it is detonated with a nuke.
It splits, and doesn't get thrown away from the other pieces, they sit with each other and get caught in the earths gravity well and slowly fall towards us. These are still gonna be really big chunks of rock still clumped together by gravity, loosely held to each other falling on earth.
So instead of one big rock we have a few slightly smaller rocks carpet bombing us.
Gee great idea sir that'll sure save us.
Or we could do this.
[URL]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_tractor[/URL][/QUOTE]
Thank you for posting this I'm tired of trying to explain it in every asteroid thread.
This isn't a videogame, we don't just blow everything up.
[QUOTE=bravehat;23959947]Well there are no methods that are actually worth while.
If we find an asteroid that's going to hit us in any less than 10 years we're shafted.
Unless we cover have the earth with mirrors to focus sunlight onto the asteroid to slightly knock it off course.[/QUOTE]
Or to simplify this, we could use a massive rail-gun/coil-gun cross that fired a tungsten or other ferromagnetic projectile at the asteroid, thus pelting it 3000 years into the past. The kinetic force should also yield enough push to propel any debris out off the path of earth.
Fuck you, asteroid. Fuck.[B] YOU.[/B]
[QUOTE=bravehat;23961522]You seem to be under the impression that these will be small chunks.
They won't be.
If it's big enough to pose a threat to the earth then here's what will happen if it is detonated with a nuke.
It splits, and doesn't get thrown away from the other pieces, they sit with each other and get caught in the earths gravity well and slowly fall towards us. These are still gonna be really big chunks of rock still clumped together by gravity, loosely held to each other falling on earth.
So instead of one big rock we have a few slightly smaller rocks carpet bombing us.
Gee great idea sir that'll sure save us.
Or we could do this.
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_tractor[/url][/QUOTE]
I am sure that by 2200 , we will have MUCH better propulsion. We might do the destruction far enough from earth for the explosion itself to be safe for us (which doesn't have to be that far, if you compare such explosion to our Sun, which is one astronomical unit away, while being one massive thermonuclear reaction, surpassing destructive force of the whole arsenal we ever had with one second of "burning:). By using enough destructive force, and by using it far enough, we might also crumble it enough, to disperse most of it's matter out of trajectory to our planet.
[editline]07:44PM[/editline]
Actually, the mirror idea seems much more stupid and unreliable to me, than using explosive charges.
[QUOTE=bravehat;23959830]Destroying an asteroid isn't easy.
Surviving a hit from them isn't exactly easy either.[/QUOTE]
Changing it's trajectory by a few inches or feet while it's still years upon years away however, is.
[QUOTE=Swilly;23967505]Better than getting hit by a shell of artillery.[/QUOTE]
Not really
The day NASA sends a probe to Uranus, I will grin and nobody normal will know why.
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