Not With A Whimper, But With A Bang!

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Rortabend
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Re: Not With A Whimper, But With A Bang!

Post by Rortabend »

Excellent article. Couldn't agree more.

In the UK, the issue of catastrophic asteroid impacts is not really taken seriously because it is associated with an eccentric former MP called Lembit Opik. One can only hope that we reach a level of technological sophistication and awareness by 2182 when there is a serious chance of a massive impact.
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Arising_uk
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Re: Not With A Whimper, But With A Bang!

Post by Arising_uk »

I too agree that if we were in a political situation mature enough to consider such threats, this is one of the biggest but I'd be concerned about this 'nuke 'em' ' solution as its not as easy as that.

http://news.discovery.com/space/another ... roids.html
artisticsolution
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Re: Not With A Whimper, But With A Bang!

Post by artisticsolution »

Arising_uk wrote:I too agree that if we were in a political situation mature enough to consider such threats, this is one of the biggest but I'd be concerned about this 'nuke 'em' ' solution as its not as easy as that.

http://news.discovery.com/space/another ... roids.html
Hi Arsing,

I know this is going to be a really stupid question...because I don't know alot about science. But it seems to me if an asteroid was blown apart by a nuke and then reassembled itself...it would still be smaller in size and would not be one single solid piece of mass but rather smaller fragments held together by gravity? So then if that were the case wouldn't most of it disintegrate in our atmosphere (a little easier anyway) rendering it not as destructive?
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Metadigital
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Re: Not With A Whimper, But With A Bang!

Post by Metadigital »

artisticsolution wrote:Hi Arsing,

I know this is going to be a really stupid question...because I don't know alot about science. But it seems to me if an asteroid was blown apart by a nuke and then reassembled itself...it would still be smaller in size and would not be one single solid piece of mass but rather smaller fragments held together by gravity? So then if that were the case wouldn't most of it disintegrate in our atmosphere (a little easier anyway) rendering it not as destructive?
The problem isn't that it would reassemble. That's not likely.

The problem is that, if we were to nuke an asteroid, chances are we'd end up having to evacuate multiple cities and prepare for multiple impacts instead of just one. It's the same amount of energy hitting the Earth, only spread over more of the Earth.

The only way we can successfully blow up an asteroid like that is if we obliterate it into pieces so small they burn up in the atmosphere. Scientists are not confident that we have the skills for such total annihilation, though (it would be extremely complex to work out something like that). Instead, they develop other methods (such as using gravity to tug asteroids away from the Earth entirely).
philofra
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Re: Not With A Whimper, But With A Bang!

Post by philofra »

The female on the cover of PN's issue 80 looks like she is preparing for the collision Joe Marks is describing. :wink:
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