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Asteroid to narrowly miss Earth
    #5814252 -

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200607/s1677393.htm

An asteroid almost half a kilometre wide is expected to miss hitting Earth by about 500,000 kilometres.

While that might sound like a huge margin, it is a little more than the distance between the earth and the moon and in astronomical terms that qualifies as a "near miss".

Two Australian astronomers have been scanning the skies over the past week, taking snapshots of space to confirm calculations the asteroid would miss the planet.

The asteroid has a rather innocuous sounding name: 2004 XP14.

Over the past week, astronomers Rob McNaught and Gordon Garradd have scanned the skies to analyse the approaching asteroid.

The two men are the only professional astronomers in the southern hemisphere looking for hazards from deep space.

Mr Garradd says the asteroid looks like a point of light.

"Basically it just looks like a point of light because imagine an object 600 metres, it's fairly large, but when you're looking at it from four or 500,000 kilometres away, it just looks like a point of light," he said.

"So it looks exactly the same as a faint star except that it's moving and within a second or two you'll be able to see that it's moving with reference to the background stars."

He says if it did hit earth, it would do a lot of damage.

"Six hundred metres diameter would do a lot of damage if it did hit, we're talking a crater many kilometres across, maybe as much as 10 or 15 kilometres across, " he said.

"And of course it depends where it hits, if it hits on the earth's surface of the rock and dirt or else in the ocean.

"If it's in the ocean you're going to get one huge tsunami."

The closest XP14 will come to Earth is 430,000 kilometres at around 2:00pm AEST today.

Mr Garradd's search for stray asteroids is part of the Spaceguard program, which is funded by NASA and uses the Australian National University's telescope at Siding Springs at Coonabarabran in NSW.


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Re: Asteroid to narrowly miss Earth [Re: HELLA_TIGHT]
    #5814272 -

This just reaffirms my belief that if an asteroid were going to hit earth, I would find out only a couple hours before it happens.:mad:


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"this lebowski he called himself 'the dude'. now, 'dude', that's a name no one would self-apply where i come from but there was a lot about the dude that didn't make sense to me...."--the Stranger

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Re: Asteroid to narrowly miss Earth [Re: HELLA_TIGHT]
    #5814728 -




And still, after all these years, we have nothing in orbit to stop such an asteroid from wiping out a small nation or US state.

While we have the technology for decades. I guess a rocket shield to keep out a possible North Korean firecracker is more important than an asteroid detection/destruction programme :rolleyes:


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Omnicyclion.org
personal empowerment for the world

Onehomemission.org
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Re: Asteroid to narrowly miss Earth [Re: Asante]
    #5814792 -

yeah but im sure word would get out if one was coming. from some one atleast.


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Lay'd back in the Lac Grippin the Grain as i Cruise Through the Streets.

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Re: Asteroid to narrowly miss Earth [Re: TheDude]
    #5814807 -

TheDude said:
This just reaffirms my belief that if an asteroid were going to hit earth, I would find out only a couple hours before it happens.:mad:


The farmers wouldn't want the sheep to panic.




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Re: Asteroid to narrowly miss Earth [Re: Asante]
    #5814814 -

delete

Edited by Annom (10/12/10 12:34 PM)

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Re: Asteroid to narrowly miss Earth [Re: Asante]
    #5814821 -

For a large object, it is unlikely that even a 50+ megaton nuke (such as Tsar Bomba, pictured above) would do much of anything at all. The movie "Armageddon" is actually (and sadly) pretty close to accurate in this respect. About the only way to effectively use a nuke is to drill a large hole and drop the nuke down the hole. (Though not for the reasons given in Armageddon.) When the nuke detonates, the hole directs the energy resulting in thrust. The thrust moves the body, rather than destroying it, so that it is no longer on a crash course with the planet.

The real key to avoiding an asteroid hit is early warning. The sooner we can nudge the asteroid, the less energy it takes to divert the course away from Earth's orbit.

One last thought... although fission devices can be made small and light, fusion devices cannot be. There are tonnes upon tonnes of lead, uranium-238, and steel inside a fusion device. For example, Tsar Bomba, which could deliver up to 100 megatons in optimal configuration, weighs in at 27.5 tonnes (over 65,000 pounds). A delta heavy lifter, the largest US rocket, can lift 48,000 pounds into low earth orbit, but only 22,000 pounds into trans lunar orbit. If you want to escape the Earth completely, it can only lift 14,000 pounds.



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Just another spore in the wind.

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Re: Asteroid to narrowly miss Earth [Re: Seuss]
    #5814846 -

Quote:
About the only way to effectively use a nuke is to drill a large hole and drop the nuke down the hole. (Though not for the reasons given in Armageddon.) When the nuke detonates, the hole directs the energy resulting in thrust. The thrust moves the body, rather than destroying it, so that it is no longer on a crash course with the planet.


Yes, if you destroy it with a nuke inside the asteroid, gravitation will pull all parts together again and form a new asteroid if it has enough time.

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Re: Asteroid to narrowly miss Earth [Re: Annom]
    #5814986 -

hey damnit, i've seen possibilities other than armeggedon from the science channel.

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Re: Asteroid to narrowly miss Earth [Re: Seuss]
    #5814990 -

The Real scary part about this near miss, Is the fact that it will come around a second time in the future, and their is probably more asteroids on their way.

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Re: Asteroid to narrowly miss Earth [Re: The_Red_Crayon]
    #5815027 -

shut up, I dont want to be scared. :smirk:


When it comes to the sky falling....
If they are close, when we notice them, all we can hope, is that they are small one, and that (wether you admit it or not... all of us.) its not right above your head.
:stoned:


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Re: Asteroid to narrowly miss Earth [Re: The_Red_Crayon]
    #5815031 -

The_Red_Crayon said:
The Real scary part about this near miss, Is the fact that it will come around a second time in the future, and their is probably more asteroids on their way.


There a hundreds of "near miss" asteroids every year, we just don't hear about them all. Some maybe not as close as this one, but it's not as rare as you think. We're pretty close (astronomically speaking) to a huge asteroid belt that provides basically an infinite amount of asteroids to fall out of orbit and possibly collide with us.

I don't have a link or anything to back this up...I learned it in two seperate classes I took last year, "The Extinction of Dinosaurs and other Controversies" and "Intro to Astronomy."

But yea...happens all the time.


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When the going gets wierd, the wierd turn pro.

-H. S. Thompson

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Re: Asteroid to narrowly miss Earth [Re: HELLA_TIGHT]
    #5815160 -

Lucifers Hammer.


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Unions are the bastions of the mediocre. - luvdemshrooms

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Re: Asteroid to narrowly miss Earth [Re: xDuckYouSuckerx]
    #5815210 -

xDuckYouSuckerx said:
Lucifers Hammer.


Now that is an awesome book.


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The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do.
---Galileo

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Re: Asteroid to narrowly miss Earth [Re: Seuss]
    #5815280 -

I'm gonna read that Annom, sounds good!

Quote:
A delta heavy lifter, the largest US rocket, can lift 48,000 pounds into low earth orbit, but only 22,000 pounds into trans lunar orbit. If you want to escape the Earth completely, it can only lift 14,000 pounds.


Thats why we need to act now, when there's ample time. You don't launch a rocket from the earth to the asteroid, but rather transport units in earth orbit, and there assemble them to form the thermonuclear device and its thruster rocket. Once assembled you take it out of earth's gravitational pull, and position a couple of these in strategic places around our orbit around the sun. Then you let them just sit there in space until needed. When needed you thaw the device and its thruster, and away she goes.

Pulverizing a small asteroid is an option, but if you set a thermonuke off in the vicinity of the asteroid, you will heat one side of the asteroid, and the rocketlike action of the vaporisation will give the asteroid the nudge it needs to push it aside. It's spectacularly wasteful as to nuclear energy, but then again 25 grams of Lithium deuteride (at a cost of ten bucks) delivers the force of a thousand tons of TNT (talk about fireworks, hee hee) so we can spare it.

By not obliterating the comet but rather giving it a wee shove by heating, across a great distance, which will make it miss us.

An MX missile (ICBM from the Cold War) could be modified to be fired from a stationary spot in space towards an asteroid threat. Because of lack of gravitational pull and the ability to slingshot around planets it can reach enormous speeds with virtually the same design. At full speed it would pop open and release its ten separate warheads which can be maneuvered with small thrusters, and these ten separate nukes could each be put to good use in the nudging of one or several asteroids. If I'm informed correctly a one-megaton thermonuclear device nowadays needs not weigh more than some 100kg (220lbs) which leaves ample room in the projectiles for electronics and thrusters.

A one-megaton burst at five km distance would get the comet's side fuming and blowing off steam, and this, across distance, effects a great change in its path without shattering it.

In the ideal world we'd shoot a sustained laserbeam from the earth to the same effect, but in the real world we'll likely do nothing until an asteroid is spotted, and then the nuclear nudge is a far smaller engineering feat.


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Omnicyclion.org
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Onehomemission.org
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Re: Asteroid to narrowly miss Earth [Re: Asante]
    #5815480 -

Quote:
I'm gonna read that Annom, sounds good!


I think it's extremely boring to read :grin: The first part might be interesting because it tells something about the different ways to deflect an asteroid. The technical/programming part was most important(and boring for most people) in this project and the rest is just to make the report look nice.

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Re: Asteroid to narrowly miss Earth [Re: Asante]
    #5815506 -

Quote:
You don't launch a rocket from the earth to the asteroid, but rather transport units in earth orbit, and there assemble them to form the thermonuclear device and its thruster rocket. Once assembled you take it out of earth's gravitational pull, and position a couple of these in strategic places around our orbit around the sun. Then you let them just sit there in space until needed.


But what happens when teh terrorists build spaceships and steal teh nukez?

Suess: how would a nuke provide thrust without just breaking up the asteroid into tiny bits. Seems logical that if you put an explosive in something, that thing will explode, unless you drill a large enough hole for the blast to escape through. Are you talking about just drilling a few hundred feet into the thing?

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Re: Asteroid to narrowly miss Earth [Re: Gumby]
    #5816697 -

Quote:
But what happens when teh terrorists build spaceships and steal teh nukez?


If you can build spaceships, you can build or otherwise acquire your own nukes.

Quote:
Suess: how would a nuke provide thrust without just breaking up the asteroid into tiny bits. Seems logical that if you put an explosive in something, that thing will explode, unless you drill a large enough hole for the blast to escape through. Are you talking about just drilling a few hundred feet into the thing?


I'm not Seuss but the explosion would form a funnel-shaped crater and the counterforce to the force with which the debris are hurled out pushes the asteroid off course.

In my humble opinion either you completely blast an asteroid to smittereens using huge nukes or heat it up from a distance with goodsized nukes, if you're going nuclear that is.


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Omnicyclion.org
personal empowerment for the world

Onehomemission.org
truly make a difference

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Re: Asteroid to narrowly miss Earth [Re: Asante]
    #5829239 -

Wiccan_Seeker said:
And still, after all these years, we have nothing in orbit to stop such an asteroid from wiping out a small nation or US state.



I'm 100% sure the US will have thermonuclear devices in orbit by now, probably in orbit over Korea and Iran right at this moment and marked as reconnaissance.

Nevermind blowing up asteroids, let's blow ourselves up! Yay! :grin:

Edit: I have actually heard some scientists discussing what kind of form an asteroid defence system would take. They seem to think it would be far better to push the asteroid off course than try to smash it to bits. Another idea mentioned that we can detect these collisions from a long way off, so we could send some sort of probe out to the asteroid to push it off course. Given the huge distances involved, angles and timescales, the probe would only need to put a tiny amount of continuous force on the asteroid to have it miss Earth - I think I heard them say something like 5 Newtons would be enough for quite a big asteroid.

Edited by johnuk (07/06/06 08:22 PM)

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Re: Asteroid to narrowly miss Earth [Re: johnuk]
    #5829251 -

Quote:
Nevermind blowing up asteroids, let's blow up ourselves! Yay!


It does pose less engineering problems :wink:


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Omnicyclion.org
personal empowerment for the world

Onehomemission.org
truly make a difference

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